Paper Monitor: Going swimmingly A service highlighting...

... the riches of the daily press Published duration 17 June 2013

No-one likes to get to the gym first thing in the morning to find all the running machines nabbed.

Particularly if you're a world leader and you don't have time to waste waiting to give the jogging machine a good pounding.

So what do those who need their workout like others need caffeine to kick-start their day do? They take over the whole gym, according to The Sun.

Barack Obama is a notorious gym bunny, his gruelling early-morning workouts legendary. Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, is better known for his outdoor He-man photo shoots - invariably topless - horseback riding, angling, etc.

But what might happen if the two came together in the gym?

The Sun says the pair both wanted to use the gym at the five-star resort hosting the G8 summit. But it was the American, rather than the Russian that won exclusive rights.

image caption All in a day's workout for Vladimir

Putin, it appears, is taking it like a man.

Neither wanted to back down - or work out together, the paper reports.

"Both wanted the gym and Obama's people requested it first. It could have sparked a bitter battle and ended up a laughable sticking point at the talks. "They said it was fine as Putin will go for an early morning swim in the lake instead," the paper's source is quoted as saying.

The waters of Fermanagh may be considered bracing, but the Russian leader will no doubt laugh in the face of this particular adversity.

After all, he does have experience of swimming in the River Volga. Butterfly.

But Paper Monitor wonders if the manager of this particular resort made themselves scarce on learning that Putin is a black-belt at judo. Or that this is the man who infamously felled a tiger with a tranquiliser dart.