The town of Heinola in 1999 played host to the first Sauna World Championships. Last weekend, the town some 70 miles northeast of Helsinki held the event for a 12th time, which organizers now say will be the last time. Even in Finland, news of that closed sauna door has to be embraced with open arms.
The two-man final last Saturday ended horrifically, with both contestants hurriedly yanked out of the hot box, and one of them, Vladimir Ladyzhenskiy, left dead. A Russian amateur wrestler in his 60s, the seemingly fit Ladyzhenskiy expired after sitting in the sauna for six minutes, enduring a temperature stoked to more than 230 degrees Farenheit.
Yes, that temperature is correct. Ladyzhenskiy and his co-finalist, Finland’s Timo Kaukonen — both of them veteran extreme sauna competitors — competed in a hot box cranked up to about 10 percent above the point at which water boils. Not a dry heat, either. By tournament rules, a half-liter of water was splashed over the sauna’s heater every 30 seconds, which added moisture to the air, and possibly added to the lethal atmosphere (Boston.com).
I had never heard of this before, but it has to be one of the stupidest things I have ever heard in my entire life. You put two people in a small room and crank the heat above the point of boiling water. If that wasn't bad enough you add steam every 30 seconds, which makes it feel hotter, and makes the body cooling down process even harder. So basically this was the live cooking of 2 people in front of a crowd. You would think the world as a collective whole would be smarter then this, but I guess not.
I would never expect this from Finland either. This sounds like something from a 3rd world country, or Poland. How was there no doctor that came out during the 12 years that they were doing this and say "Hmmm, probably not a good idea". Maybe I should move to Finland, because it sounds like I could be the #1 doctor in no time.
And yes, that picture above is them.
