Mr. Olympia 2022: Dates, Schedule, Prize Money, Top Bodybuilders and Predictions (2024)

It's the most wonderful time of the year...for fans of bodybuilding. The 2022 Mr. Olympia kicks off in Las Vegas on Friday with a stacked field of competitors with otherworldly physiques chasing one man: back-to-back winner Mamdouh "Big Ramy" Elssbiay.

The most dominant competitor in the sport will look to wrap up another Sandow trophy victory, but he faces tough challenges from former champion Brandon Curry, previous runner-up Hadi Choopan and a motivated William Bonac.

Do any of those three have what it takes to dethrone Big Ramy, or will the Egyptian competitor once again prove that no one measures up?

Location

Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino

Schedule

Prejudging: Friday, December 16 at 6:00 p.m.

Finals: Saturday, December 17 at 7:00 p.m.

Prize Money

Big Ramy is a two-time defending Mr. Olympia having won the 2020 and '21 competitions, and this year does not figure to be much different. A competitor with boulders for shoulders, he is the favorite to win this year's event, according to eight-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman and four-time winner Jay Cutler.

He has trained intensely to ensure a successful title defense but stunned the bodybuilding world earlier in the year by revealing his plans to retire from the sport at the age of 38.

"I don't have a lot of time to be around [my children], and they asked me," he said on The Menace Podcast.

"I said 'OK, let me train and do this stuff until I'm 38 (years old).'"

Whether the 2022 contest is his last and he actually retires from competing remains to be seen, but there is an entire field of bodybuilders playing catchup to the Egyptian star who hopes to etch his name in the sport's history books with a third win.

As long as he does not slip up and delivers up to expectations, that should be the case. It is notoriously difficult to unseat a previous champion, especially if they show up in condition and do not manage to underwhelm the judges.

Since the inception of the event in 1965, there have only been 16 different men to win the coveted title. Five of those competitors won five or more consecutive titles, proving just how difficult it is to interrupt an elite bodybuilder's run atop the sport.

There are three challengers poised to try anyway.

Big Ramy wasted no time telling The Menace Podcast who he believes his three biggest challengers are in this year's field: William Bonac, Brandon Curry and Hadi Choopan.

Seven-time Mr. Olympia Phil Heath echoed Ramy's sentiment on Muscular Development Magazine's YouTube channel, spotlighting Curry and, more specifically, Choopan as two threats to the title if the favorite was to falter at all.

Former Mr. Olympia Lee "Hercules" Haney went as far as to proclaim Choopan the best-conditioned athlete at the event in 2021.

Ramy took notice, too, telling Coleman on his podcast that he believes last year's third-place finisher will be the first runner-up in the 2022 show.

Curry has the chance to make history at this year's event. A win at the 2022 Mr. Olympia makes him the first bodybuilder to win that title and the Arnold Classic in the same year, twice.

Curry won this year's Arnold Classic, his second.

The only opponent to beat him in competition since 2018? Ramy, including last year's Mr. Olympia.

Bonac enters this year's event knowing full well where he is lacking in comparison to the other top contenders: size, as he revealed in a video on his official YouTube channel.

He has never struggled with conditioning but knows that perception is important and standing on stage with the mammoth Big Ramy and equally as impressive Curry means he has to size up. He has taken the steps to do just that.

"We hit a point [where] we can't go further, so we have to do something different in order to get a different result. So that's what we're doing now. [We're] trying to gain more muscle to be as heavy as possible on stage," he said in the video (h/t BarBend's Jason Serafino).

This is Big Ramy's competition to win.

He has a physique like none other, which is why he has enjoyed the level of success that he has over the last handful of years. He is disciplined and, having won two Mr. Olympia events in a year, knows exactly what he must do to impress judges and ensure he turns his back-to-back victories into a three-peat.

Having spent all of 2022 specifically preparing for this event and the stage it provides, it feels rather unlikely that he will not perform up to lofty expectations and take home his third Sandow.

Prediction: Ramy wins, Cutler finishes as first runner-up and Choopan rounds out the field.