VENEZUELA: Venezuela's citizens take to parks and streets as free gyms spring up across Caracas

Record ID: 783188

  • Title: VENEZUELA: Venezuela's citizens take to parks and streets as free gyms spring up across Caracas
  • Date: 1st July 2011
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PHYSICAL TRAINER, DILMER DUNO, SAYING: "I think for some time, about a year and a half, it became fashionable to be healthy. People started exercising outdoors. I think it has to do with stress in the city. Caracas is a very complicated city. There's a lot of traffic, insecurity and so people try to release tension from the office. I jog when I get back from the office, I sleep very well and then the following day I'm ready to face the world again." VARIOUS OF PEOPLE JOGGING
  • Embargoed: 16th July 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of
  • Country: Venezuela
  • Topics: Health,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVADSPQ6SV7FCB0AJNMR5P2IY8PG
  • Story Text: President Hugo Chavez's ambitious project to bring "21st Century socialism" to Venezuela has taken a bold new turn: free gyms for Caracas' beautiful people.
    Although the country's gap between rich and poor may be wide, nothing unites Venezuelan's like their fixation with beauty. Thousands of Caracas residents take to the capital's traffic-clogged streets in their ritual pursuit of physical perfection.
    The recent explosion of free open-air gyms across Caracas has taken the country's national obsession to dizzying new heights with children and the elderly getting in on the act.
    "It wasn't like this before. I don't know why it's increased (exercising). Now you even see five-year-olds (doing exercise), to ride the bicycle. Even elderly people in their 60s, 70s are seen walking and doing exercise," said resident Vanessa Teran.
    For Venezuela's patriots, its historic physical supremacy in international beauty pageants is a source of national pride and motivation for those sweating it out in city streets. The country has won four Miss Universe titles, boasts five Miss Worlds and four Miss International crowns - more than any other country.
    Venezuela's metrosexual men are not left out with the Mr. Venezuela and Mr. Young Venezuela competitions motivating thousands to pump elaborate weights formed from stones and spare car parts in the middle of parks and squares.
    "Doing exercise is an obsession. I think it's healthy to feel good," said Caracas resident Oscar Nunez.
    With Caracas one of Latin America's most expensive cities and the country's economy in dire straits, budget constraints are no barrier to beauty. More and more of the capital's revolutionary resident's work-out in the parks and plazas day and night as the traditional gym has become a luxury many cannot afford.
    "I think for some time, about a year and a half, it became fashionable to be healthy. People started exercising outdoors. I think it has to do with stress in the city. Caracas is a very complicated city. There's a lot of traffic, insecurity and so people try to release tension from the office. I jog when I get back from the office, I sleep very well and then the following day I'm ready to face the world again," said personal trainer Dilmer Duno.
    With plastic surgery operations estimated to be over 40,000 a year, Venezuela's no pain, no gain quest for beauty shows no sign of abating.
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