Bizarre Contest Tragedy
 

Why do people do these things? I cook food at that temperature....



By JARI TANNER and MALIN RISING - Associated Press Writers



Spectators react at the final at the World Sauna Championships in Heinola, Finland, on Saturday, Aug. 7, 2010. The championships begin with...

(AP Photo / LEHTIKUVA / Sari Gustafsson)

Spectators react at the final at the World Sauna Championships in Heinola, Finland, on Saturday, Aug. 7, 2010. The championships begin with preliminary rounds and end in the finals, where the best six men and women see who can sit in the sauna the longest.

HELSINKI — A Russian man trying to win the Sauna World Championships died after collapsing with severe burns in the final stage of an event that required contestants to sit in a 230-degree (110 Celsius) room as water was tossed onto a searing stove, officials and witnesses said.

Vladimir Ladyzhenskiy, an amateur wrestler who was in his 60s, was pronounced dead late Saturday after he collapsed alongside reigning champion Timo Kaukonen of Finland roughly six minutes into the final round.

Nearly 1,000 spectators had gathered in the southern Finnish town of Heinola to watch 130 competitors from 15 countries, waving flags and cheering on the contestants before medical workers pulled the shaking and bleeding men out of the sauna.

Video footage shows workers pouring cold water over the two men and administering first aid as organizers tried to cover up the scene and calm spectators.

The men were bleeding from what appeared to be severe burns, said Hakon Eikesdal, a photographer with the Norwegian daily Dagbladet.

Ladyzhenskiy headed a charity fund in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. The fund's spokesman Konstantin Kruglyansky told the LifeNews daily that his family has demanded an investigation into his death.

Kaukonen, about 40, was hospitalized in stable condition Sunday, contest spokesman Ossi Arvela said.

The annual contest had been held since 1999. It will never be held again, Arvela said.

Half a liter (a pint) of water is added to the stove every 30 seconds and the last person to remain in the sauna is the winner.

There was no prize other than "some small things" Arvela said. He declined to provide details.

Eikesdal said Kaukonen _ the defending world champion _ had refused to leave the sauna despite getting sick and that organizers had to force the men out.

Sauna bathing is a popular pastime in the Nordic countries and Russia, but especially in Finland, which has an estimated 1.6 million saunas for a population of 5 million people. Temperatures are normally kept around 158 to 176 degrees (70-80 degrees Celsius).

"I know this is very hard to understand to people outside Finland who are not familiar with the sauna habit," Arvela said. "It is not so unusual to have 110 degrees in a sauna. A lot of competitors before have sat in higher temperatures than that."

According to a research report from 2008, the annual death rate in Finnish saunas was less than 2 per 100,000 inhabitants, representing around 100 Finns a year. It said the majority of deaths were due to natural causes, such as heart problems and that half of the deaths occurred under the influence of alcohol. Around 25 percent of the deaths were the direct result of the heat exposure.

Arvala said all rules in Saturday's competition were followed and the temperatures and times were similar to those in previous years.

He said police are investigating the death.

At least he died doing what he loved.

Don't they know enough to use Bearnaise sauce and that never would have happened.

As they should.
No-one would ever have anticipatede any problems with such a harmless, well thought out contest.

It's an unfortunate incident. I'm not trying to be needlessly callous, but that's farking stupid.

Honestly, thinking this was a good idea is ridiculous. The amount of energy in steam is much, much greater than hot water. At that temp, the room is quickly going to fill with steam that will burn the crap out of you.

Even if I was idiot enough to get into a room like that, you can bet you rear that it wouldn't be for long. I have too great a sense of self preservation.

lol, thank you gentlemen. Literally spit my beer out my nose

what???:eek:

Man, I bet that sauna would be great for bringing back dried out cigars.....

yup nothing could be better than dieing next to a hot sweating Finnish man.

...and with your last breath inhaling the evaporated sweat of all the people in that sweatbox...


I think group saunas are gross. Your opinion may vary.

There are pix out there of the Russian guy when they first pulled him out - it wasn't pretty.