Allow me to introduce you to an extraordinary lady named Iris Davis She was born in Dublin, Ireland, one of 14 siblings in 1944, being the end of WW1, luxuries were in short supply. Iris had a big family of children to play with, and they all looked after each other. In spite of her background of always being tiny as a child, Iris has had an impressive life with heartache and triumph. She began her life of fitness quite by accident. Walking was always the only way she knew how to cope with her depression. Iris did not realize at that time she was starting an adventure she could never stop and ended up inspiring thousands of women to take up Fitness. Remember, there were no role models in her youth to look up to so she forged her own, there were no role models in her youth to look up to so she forged her own path. She tried to enter Gym’s, however, in the 60s and the 70s women were usually not allowed in gyms and Gym were not like they are today one on every corner, the gyms she is talking about had straw on the floor and chalk with hardly any equipment, grunting men all over weight and oversize, she was the only female in the gym.
Iris claims she was never disrespected and was always helped by the men however, she also says eventually she forged her own way of working out and it worked for her so she continued on this path for her entire life 60, years now. In 1994 and living in London, Iris was encouraged to enter a contest. She claims she had no idea what a contest consisted of but entered anyway. When she arrived at the venue, she learned there were no no categories for women so she had to compete with Men. Iris competed in a class of 4 men and came in second at age 50 in 1994. In her second show she competed in Florida, where she now resided. She was 57 years of age at least a decade and a half older than everybody else in the show. And to her surprise, she took first place for women’s bodybuilding and also first place for mixed pairs. That same year 2001 she went on to win at least nine first places with Npc. Iris completed an NPC shows and currently holds a record of 15 1st place wins. She retired in 2010. In 2020 she came out of retirement and went on to win 3 more first places plus her PRO CARD with IFBB pro league at age 79. Iris is a record holder of three world records plus she is the oldest professional bodybuilder in the world right now at age 80. Iris is considered extraordinary because she started bodybuilding in her very young years. From the beginning, Iris never really knew what she was doing yet. She rose to the top of a man’s profession without any help whatsoever from any man consequently, she achieved a pioneer award from the world’s women leadership Congress due to dedication to Fitness for 60 years.
So let’s go back a few years to Iris when she was 17 years of age Iris married at the age of 17, she had her first child at age 18, unfortunately her child died at two months old from pneumonia. Iris then suffered from severe depression and trauma due to the death of her son and in order to combat this. Iris walked up and down the streets of Dublin and London England. It was the only way she could find solace because she found when she was walking she was not lying in bed crying, which had become the norm for her. At age 22 Iris had another child and when that son was two months old, Iris lost her husband to tragic accident. so once again, more trauma compounded by more depression and a very lonely life it was at this point Iris decided to seek a better life for herself and decided to immigrate to the United States where she could bring her six month old son, she had acquired a job as a nanny in Massachusetts.
