Schwarzenegger tours Arnold Sports Festival

COLUMBUS (AP) — California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was expected to tour brawny bodybuilding exhibits Saturday at the annual Ohio sports festival that bears his name.

Thousands of visitors were expected in Columbus for muscular competitions and a fitness exposition at the Arnold Sports Festival.

Schwarzenegger arrived Friday and attended a fundraiser for his after-school children’s program. The former champion bodybuilder and movie star also handed out awards at a women’s bodybuilding competition.

Saturday’s highlights included the evening Arnold Classic bodybuilding competition.

The annual fitness event began as a much smaller bodybuilding contest that Schwarzenegger won in 1970.

Now it’s grown to include a variety of sideshows that entertain guests in between the displays of buff bodies pumping iron.

“Each year we try to get entertainment that is truly different and outstanding,” said Jim Lorimer, Schwarzenegger’s partner in putting on the festival. “They bring people out of their seats.”

Talent scouts help find performers whose acts are entertaining and have some connection to fitness or athletics, he said. Some are paid more than $10,000 for short shows.

This year’s eye-catching acts include impersonators Mario Rieger and Thomas Scheu, dressed as Schwarzenegger’s characters from “Terminator” and “Conan the Barbarian.”

Indiana resident Shelley Campbell, who took a picture of the two Germans, said she thinks such sideshows give the event more “zing.”

Another performance was a Chinese ballerina who pirouetted atop her partner’s head. The festival paid to bring the two to town.

“They’re really the only people in the world who do this, and they’re very hard to get out of China,” Lorimer said.