“I’m quite humbled to be leading an amazing team of athletes who will be representing New Zealand on the world stage,” he said.
He qualified through the INBA-PNBA Pacific Rim Championships in Auckland on September 12.
Pearce has been around gyms since he was 17 and has a military background.
He said bodybuilding “kicked in” during his early 40s.
“Back then, the goal certainly wasn’t to take it particularly far. I’d got into a role in the Air Force that I absolutely loved and I put everything I had into that position,” he said.
“That meant that my training, nutrition and everything else went on the back burner and by the time I finished that role, I was about 20 kilos heavier, quite out of shape and needed a big, scary challenge to kick my butt into gear.”
A friend suggested he enter a bodybuilding show, which he initially laughed at but ended up competing and winning at 43.
“That pretty much lit this fire in me for the sport,” Pearce said.
“I love the structure, I love the discipline that comes with it and I think that speaks to my military background – that regimented approach.
“What started off as a one-and-done bucket-list challenge has turned into something that I never would have imagined and would not have thought would lead me to stepping on stage at the pinnacle of natural bodybuilding.”
The 50-year-old represented New Zealand at the Olympia in 2023.
“It’s an amazing vibe, you get to share the stage with these phenomenal athletes,” he said.
“The camaraderie backstage, the sportsmanship and everything is just next level and, of course, it’s Las Vegas, which is just a crazy city at the best of times.”
Pearce will compete in the classic physique category in the 50-plus division.
He hoped to place as high as he could and make New Zealand, the Rangitīkei District and his gym proud.
“I’m feeling really confident and I’m comfortable that I’m going to bring the best physique to the stage and do the gym proud,” he said.
Pearce co-founded The Foundry Gym with Dave Fenwick in June. It now has 340 members.
“What’s really humbling is, with the gym being a relatively new entity, the support and encouragement that I’ve received from not just the gym membership but the wider community has been absolutely phenomenal,” he said.
“It speaks to the community spirit we get in rural New Zealand.
“It’s not every day that the words ‘Bulls’ and ‘Las Vegas’ get used in the same sentence.”
Pearce said the gym had 1917 people through the doors in September, nearly equivalent to Bulls’ population of 2110, according to Infometrics’ June 2025 data.
“We’re stoked; we couldn’t have imagined that we’d be doing this well,” he said.
Fin Ocheduszko Brown is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.
