64 JUNE 2017

T

Covered in glory:

Robards’ path to MH

world domination.

From top: MH Croatia,

USA, Spain, South

Africa, Russia, Turkey

and Germany.

im Robards is sitting on a rolling

mound of grass behind the surf club

at Sydney’s idyllic Freshwater beach.

Despite the languid setting, his

face carries a grimace. The reason

for the anguish? He’s recalling an

injury that occurred earlier last

year that could easily have derailed

everything he’s been working

towards and threatened one of his

most precious assets: his body.

It was April, and Robards was

at the outdoor gym down at Bondi

Beach doing one of the eye-popping

calisthenics moves for which he’s

become famous – a back lever

with his arms supinated. Maybe

he wasn’t warmed up enough, he

says, or perhaps he’d done too many

“push” movements before going

into a pulling one. Whatever it was,

the result wasn’t pretty. He tore his

biceps muscle clean off the bone.

“It was excruciating,” says

‘‘I’m cover-model

ready because my

body is a reflection

of my lifestyle’’

TIM ROBARDS WEARS SPEEDO SHORTS