Arnold Sports Festival returning to Ohio’s capital city

By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Organizers say the Arnold Sports Festival is returning to Ohio’s capital city as one of the country’s biggest sporting festivals. The return of the event comes two years after the festival became one of the first economic victims of the coronavirus pandemic. The annual festival has a more than $50 million impact and draws tens of thousands of participants and spectators each year to Columbus. Officials limited spectators to parents and guardians of minors two years ago. The festival was canceled last year. It returns next week though a city-wide mask mandate will still apply. It began as a bodybuilding competition founded by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1989.