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Born in Fabriano, in the center of Italy, Claudia Patenza attended college to become a teacher since she thought it was the fastest way to enter the University of physical education of Perugia , which was her biggest ambition since she was twelve. This experience was a disappointment, because it was not exactly what she had expected; in consequence of this, after only 5 exams, Claudia quit University but certainly not her passion for sports. Her first approach to sports was playing basketball, in particularly since her father was a staff member of the local basketball team. She also practiced artistic gymnastics for 8 years, then tennis and swimming and also became a licensed Lifeguard. Later Claudia moved from Fabriano to Milan because of her work, she begun to frequent gyms. It wasn’t until she was 31 when she first began lifting weights after her second child was born, since being a mom wouldn’t have let her follow with total commitment any course. So the natural solution was the gym because that would offer more flexibility with her time. Claudia would workout while her daughter was at school and her baby would sleep in his baby buggy while she was trained. This self-made and personalized training begun to excite her more each day, and she finally had the possibility to concentrate her efforts in order to remove the signs of previous pregnancies. Many people started to encourage her to do competitions, because she was “genetically predisposed”. One day Claudia had the opportunity to see a live Body Building competition: it was really exciting! Claudia says she could smell the contest tension and thought: why not? Claudia’s first competition was in 2002 with the “Freeway Trophy” and she finished in 5th place. In 2003 she tried to compete in the “Two Towers” competition in the prestige category… Claudia didn’t even reach the finals! In that contest she met Betto Mondello and he gave her the most beautiful compliment of her sporting career: “Of course you haven’t won this competition: you are not suited for fitness, you are a body builder!. Next week there will be another contest in “La Spezia” called the “Night of champions”; you should enter that competition as a body builder!” Claudia followed his suggestion and that night she won the competition for the BB -52kg! That contest qualified Claudia for the 2004 European Championships and to her it was a real surprise! This started Claudia’s road to success, with a lot of work, sacrifices, giving up, perseverance and will-power. Claudia’s story is the evidence that “if you want it, you can do it!” Be sure and check out Claudia’s own website: claudiapartenza.com.