Bodybuilding lost one of its rising names this week. Marianne von Gierke, by most accounts, was just getting started on what could’ve been her best stretch yet.
NPC Worldwide Chile posted the news on Instagram Wednesday. Part of the statement read: “Today we bid farewell with deep sorrow to an athlete who left an indelible mark on bodybuilding.” Fellow Chilean IFBB Pro Felipe Isaac Fierro joined in on the announcement too, and tributes started coming in fast after that, from competitors and fans who’d clearly been watching her rise over the past year with real interest in where she was headed next.
Nobody’s released a cause of death yet, not her family, not her federation, nothing official.
Von Gierke’s road here wasn’t quick. She started in 2014, spent years working toward her Pro card, finally got it in 2021. From there it kept building, including a win at the Vancouver Island Pro in Canada back in 2024 that got her into the Olympia for the first time.
This year, though, was looking like her best one yet. She opened with sixth place at the Texas Pro, used that to tighten up her conditioning for the rest of the season. It worked. She went on to win Women’s Physique at the Rising Phoenix Pro, a pretty major title in this sport, and according to Chilean outlet Radio Polar, she did it with a perfect score and locked in another Olympia spot while she was at it.
At the Olympia itself, just weeks before she died, she finished 13th. Combined with the Rising Phoenix win, a lot of people in the sport were expecting her to keep moving up the rankings from here.
Off the stage, she was a lawyer too, which made her stand out even in a sport full of athletes juggling demanding day jobs. She was well known back in Magallanes, the southern Chilean region she was from, for both things, her legal work and the time she put into helping younger athletes coming up behind her.
Regional outlets like Radio Magallanes had been following her since she first broke into Chile’s IFBB Professional League in 2021, usually mentioning both sides of her life, courtroom and competition stage, whenever they covered her.
Tributes haven’t stopped since Wednesday. Fellow competitors, federation people, fans across Chile and internationally, all sharing condolences. Generation Iron, one of the bigger outlets covering the sport, extended its sympathies to her family, friends, fellow competitors and supporters.
For someone who had just put together the best results of her career, this one’s hit the community pretty hard, a lot of people were expecting to watch her keep climbing for years to come.
