Statesmen Want Nothing to Go to Waist

Government can be fattening for world leaders. They get to eat their nation’s best cuisine every day. They’re schlepped about in limousines.

When Western Hemisphere leaders gathered in Quebec City last weekend, some of Canada’s best chefs cooked, richly, for them. Temptations exist outside of summits too: When German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder developed a taste for curry sausages a few years ago, he saw his waistline take a turn for the wurst.

But times may be changing from the days when Israel’s Ariel Sharon, now prime minister, got a box of Slim Fast as a gift and chugged down three cans of the diet beverage in one sitting.

Today’s generation of leaders is making an effort to emphasize vigor over vittles.

So it seemed when a dozen Associated Press reporters around the world looked into the exercise regimens of national leaders.

President Bush’s exercising involves a battery of gym machines, free weights and a treadmill. Steak is the forbidden love of Vice President Dick Cheney, the red meat banished on doctor’s orders after his spate of heart problems. He exercises too.

The White House is not the only house where leaders are working out or limbering up.

VIPs are taking to judo mats in Moscow, squash courts in Egypt, tennis courts in Britain, the Tigris River of Iraq, and even a hole in the ice in Finland to get in shape or stay that way.

Mornings in Bangladesh find Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina up early, practicing yoga. After a splash of water on her face and feet, she is ready for prayers and her nation’s business.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says he sets aside almost an hour for swimming and other exercise in the morning and tries to do an additional 90 minutes of workouts later in the day.

But his physical rituals peak on the judo mat; he has a black belt.

“When I am with other people practicing judo, I feel as though I am with close relatives,” Putin, 48, told athletes at a Japanese sports center last year.

He promptly went out on the mats and got thrown by a 10-year-old girl. History does not record whether he took the fall on purpose.

Bush, 54, has a routine that includes 155 pounds on the bench press for his biceps and chest, the same weight on the lateral pulldown for his back, and three sets of 10 curls each with free weights, says Anne Womack, his spokeswoman.

Plus, he tries to run four times a week and can cover a mile in a brisk 7 minutes, 30 seconds, inside the house or out.

“The brother’s doing all right,” said an impressed Marques Haden, assistant manager of a Bally’s gym in Washington, scanning the president’s workout list. “Keeps you pumped up.

“He can run faster than some guys I play football with.”

Leaders seem trimmer than in the years of tottering Soviet leaders and plump Westerners, epitomized by former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a cookbook author and renowned feaster who weighed 365 pounds in 1998, the year he was defeated.

After the German government moved to Berlin from Bonn in 1999, the new chancellor grew fond of the city’s currywurst, a sausage piled with curry powder and ketchup. Schroeder’s girth grew, and his wife Doris made him give up the sandwich.

For athleticism in German government, the star goes to Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, 52, a once-chunky figure who finished in the top third of the Berlin marathon last year.

When British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Bush met the press at Camp David in Maryland earlier this year, Blair had already been to the gym that morning and the president was going there next.

“I’m probably as fit now as when I left university, because for a long time in my 20s and 30s I didn’t bother much,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair, 47, a man of many athletic interests, told a magazine.

Others make daily activity a prerequisite too, even if it is not of the pulse-pounding type.

Hasina, 54, spends an hour doing yoga or walking in reflective solitude.

“I feel so relaxed after doing the yoga and washing my face and feet before saying the fazr [morning] prayer,” she said. “It’s a wonderful way to begin the day.”

If horse racing is the sport of kings, swimming is the sport of prime ministers and presidents.

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, 64, swims in the morning. Chinese President Jiang Zemin, 74, wore paisley trunks for a Hawaii ocean swim en route to Washington a few years ago, back when U.S.-Chinese relations were warmer.

Finnish President Tarja Halonen, 57, is a pool regular too. She also takes an occasional dip in the Baltic Sea through a hole in the ice.

In black swimsuit and white cap, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein swam across the Tigris River three times in 1997, at age 60, to show his vigor. Iraqi swimmers now celebrate that day every year.

Aides are often eager to advertise the boss’ activities, especially when political opponents tend to be younger.

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, 67, a skier and golfer who took his first snowboarding lesson for his 65th birthday, was often photographed in athletic pursuits during the last election.

Blair’s main rival, Conservative Party leader William Hague, 40, practices judo with his chief of staff, Sebastian Coe, former middle-distance runner and Olympic gold medalist.

Hague’s fighting-fit appearance was complicated, however, when he recently owned up to drinking an astonishing 14 pints of beer a day as a young man.