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Home » BodyBuilding News » Sam Sulek Wins 2025 Arnold Amateur Contest, Earns IFBB Pro Card

Sam Sulek Wins 2025 Arnold Amateur Contest, Earns IFBB Pro Card

The fitness influencer goes pro.

Phil Blechman
Written by Phil Blechman
Last updated on May 28th, 2025

Sam Sulek is officially an IFBB Pro League bodybuilder. After winning the 2025 Legends Classic in mid-February, Sulek earned an invitation to compete at the 2025 Arnold Classic Amateur (ACA) contest on Feb. 27, 2025, at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, OH. Needless to say, he made the most of it by scoring the gold in the eyes of the judges in the Classic physique division.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Arnold Sports Festival presented by KSM-66 (@arnoldsports)

[Related: Train With Caution — These Exercises Are Dangerous]

Sulek has an impressive enough physique to garner a titanically large 6.5 million Instagram followers. That popularity in the bodybuilding sphere supplied him access to some of the biggest names in the sport and to hear their feedback on his physique and posing. Among them are four-time Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler and 25-time Olympia-winning coach Hany Rambod, who critiqued Sulek’s physique in the lead-up to the 2025 ACA following Sulek’s 2025 Legends Classic triumph.

Rambod seemed impressed with Sulek’s physique at the amateur level, giving him a score of 9.5 out of 10. However, with the weight drop in conditioning for the competitive stage, Rambod feels Sulek needs to build up his triceps and quads and achieve more striated glutes. While that leaves plenty of room for Sulek to improve, the work Sulek has done up to this point is pro-level.

With his IFBB Pro Card in hand, Sulek can compete in any future IFBB Pro show he chooses. Although Sulek did not share any plans for future pro shows he intends to compete in at the time of this article’s publication, should he win one during the 2025 season, he would qualify for the 2025 Olympia.

The 2025 Arnold Classic continues through March 1 and will feature seven of the 11 IFBB Pro divisions, including the Men’s Open contest, which holds pre-judging on Friday, Feb. 28, and its final on Saturday, March 1.

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Featured image: @ArnoldSports / Instagram

Phil Blechman

About Phil Blechman

Phil is a native New Yorker passionate about storytelling, bodybuilding, and game design. He holds a BFA from Syracuse University.

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