They grunted, they flexed and they posed in their tight swimming trunks in downtown Baghdad, all in honor of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former bodybuilder turned politician. It was the governor of California's 57th birthday, and thousands of miles away in blisteringly hot Baghdad members of the Arnold Classic gym celebrated too, staging what they said was the country's first postwar bodybuilding competition. "This is for Arnold, our hero and the greatest champion ever," announced Sabah Talib, owner of the gym and himself a former Asian bodybuilding champ, as he launched the event Friday.
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