These are definately not girlie men.San Antonio Express-News
August 3, 2004
In Baghdad Gym, Arnold Is The Man
By Sig Christenson
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Insurgents continue their campaign of terror. Democracy is proving elusive. But in a dingy fitness center here, 30 of Baghdad's beefiest came together Friday to celebrate the governor of California's 47th birthday.
They also gathered to compete in the Arnold Classic for Bodybuilding Championship, the brainchild of gym owner Sabah Talib.
A fanatic about all things Schwarzenegger, the 44-year-old former Iraqi weightlifting champion is full of admiration that is emphatic, if a bit lost in translation.
“I live,” Talib said, “to be part of Arnold's body.”
The walls of Arnold Classic Gym — which doubles as a temple — are covered with posters of a young, chiseled Schwarzenegger. For Iraqi bodybuilders such as Aws Abd Al-Jabbar, those images are more inspirational than any mural of Saddam Hussein.
“When I come to this place, I'm proud to see these pictures,” he said. “When I dream, I become Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
Talib would have named the fitness center after Schwarzenegger long ago if it hadn't been for Saddam. As things stood, the gym was known as Elegant Bodies House from 1997 until the U.S.-led coalition told Saddam, “Hasta la vista, baby,” last year.
Fear of Saddam's secret police didn't stop Talib from quietly honoring “the Terminator.” When his youngest child was born five years ago, he didn't have to pore through baby name books.
As young Arnold ran around the gym, preparations were in high gear for the contest. Outside, festive green, red, purple and blue streamers hung over a flimsy wooden stage. The sign behind it wished Schwarzenegger, the star of more than two dozen movies since 1970, a happy birthday.
More than 100 converged on the gym at 7 p.m. to watch contestants coated in baby oil showing off pecs, abs and biceps.
The five bodybuilders judging the event were to look for such qualities as the best definition of muscle groups.
The top three finishers were given medals, while those placing fourth, fifth and sixth got a year of free training.
Young Arnold jumped on the stage, pulled off his shirt and posed like the classic Arnold.
It has a catchy name, but this place is hardly Gold's Gym. The aging weight stations are haphazardly arranged. Power comes and goes. The odor of sweat fills the air, heated by the desert sun.
About 400 members of this gym pay $7 a month to work out on their own or $30 a month with a trainer. They range from 12 to 60 years old and, Talib said, develop the discipline “to get useful things in his life.”
Schwarzenegger's thoughts on all this weren't entirely clear. A spokeswoman said he was busy with the California budget and probably wouldn't be available for an interview.
Still, Talib has swapped letters with the governor, the latest arriving days ago. Schwarzenegger called the contest “a great compliment.”
“The last letter excited me too much,” he said. “But in this last letter he understood the real meaning of gym in Iraq.”
Talib and the gym's honorary president, John Clune, see weightlifting as Iraq's version of midnight basketball, the Clinton administration's idea of keeping kids off the streets. They say Baghdad bodybuilders are pumping iron instead of dropping mortars.
“I think that there is a proportion of the Iraqi population who are hostile to western intervention,” said Clune, a 33-year-old security adviser for the BBC. “I think that a venture and a venue such as this gives a proportion of the population a vent for their youthful exuberance.”
Every bodybuilder described Schwarzenegger as his role model and America's No. 1 goodwill ambassador to Iraq.
“He's our spirit; he's our hero,” said Hamid Abd Al-Rahman, a 40-year-old trainer at the gym.
“He is the hero of everything, even cinema,” said Talib, who won 31 bodybuilding championships in Iraq from 1973 to 1990. “Also, the political life.”
Once as hard-bodied as the young Schwarzenegger in the 1976 documentary “Pumping Iron,” Talib now is soft and aging, with a belly. There's no danger of going Hollywood, but Talib has struck up a rapport with the governor.
Schwarzenegger has invited him to the Arnold Fitness Weekend in Columbus, Ohio, next spring.
“The story of your work with the gym in Baghdad will surely inspire others,” he wrote.
That is, if there is a gym.
Talib's landlord has taken notice of several high-profile news organizations in the neighborhood and wants to quadruple his rent, which is now $3,500 a year. His confidante Clune, who lives in London, worries it's too much.
Despite that, Talib talked of expanding his gym and was looking ahead to the next year's bodybuilding championship.
“On this special day, on the birthday of Mr. Arnold, we send our regards to the governor,” he said. “We say happy new year for you and hopefully next year the competition will be even better and we make a good competition appropriate for your great name. By God's will we will expand the name of Arnold for all the country, in all life fields.”
