A sitting Mr. Olympia champion has come back to defend 51 times and won 38 of them, 74.5%. That average hides a break: 37 of 44 through 2017, then 1 of 7 since.
New champions do not arrive from nowhere: 12 of the last 14 stood in the previous year’s top five. The exceptions were Ronnie Coleman in 1998 and Mamdouh Elssbiay in 2020.
Nobody has won the Men’s Open Olympia at their first attempt since 1965, and the one who did, Larry Scott, had no choice: it was the first Olympia ever staged.
