Saddam Hussein's personal trainer, who fled the country after refusing a gift from the Iraqi dictator in 1995, meets Arnold Schwarzenegger this weekend. From a Christian Science Monitor profile of the man, Sabah Mehdi:
"In 2000, Mehdi tried to name his gym, then the 'Elegant Bodies House,'
after Arnold. But Saddam Hussein's psychopathic son Uday, who
controlled the Olympic Commission, wouldn't allow it: no foreign names
for Iraqi gyms. The minute Hussein's statue fell, he renamed the gym. 'It was my lifelong dream,' he says fervently, sitting in his tiny
office strewn with weightlifting magazines and Arnoldiana. Above him,
Arnolds flex and prance across the walls, next to a line from the Koran
that could be a bodybuilder's motto: 'God does not oppress people, but
people oppress themselves.' "
(Photo:
Scott Nelson / Getty Images)
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