His post on the event talks about how the competitive spirit and the drive to succeed can cause people to stay in longer than they can reasonably tolerate:
Water boils at 212 degrees, so walking into that sauna feels like you’re climbing into your own personal pizza oven and closing the door. It feels like benzene torches have been stuck in your mouth, your ears and your nose. Every 30 seconds, they drop a pitiless stream of water on the white-hot rocks in the middle of the sauna. That steam hits you like a slap in the face from the devil himself. But there are 1,000 people in the audience watching you and a Finnish national TV audience and your family and friends, so you take as much pain as possible before your brain screams “Let’s get out of here!”
The problem is, sometimes your body can’t obey. In the women’s final in 2007, a Belarusian woman, Natalya Trifanova, was so crumpled by the heat that she literally couldn’t get up off the bench to save herself. Panicked, she motioned for the medics to come get her.
He details at this year’s competition, the medics asked the competitors to give a thumbs up to them to show they were OK every 10-20 seconds. They made the decision to pull both men from the sauna just 3 seconds after getting the last OK signal.
Do you like your saunas hot? Really friggin’ hot? Then maybe you should consider entering the Sauna World Championships. They’ve been held in Heinloa Finland, a two hour bus ride from Helsinki, every August since 1999.
If you can get yourself to Finland this August 5-7, get a note from your doctor, and pay the € 50 entrance fee, you can add to the 137 men and 20 women from 22 countries who competed in 2008.
How hot is it? It’s 110°C / 230°F in there. If that isn’t hot enough, twice a minute an automatic shower dumps a half liter of water on the rocks of these specially constructed saunas. There’s no high-tech clothing that helps here: The rules allow the competitors to wear only a swimsuit, with strict regulations on the maximum size. The winners have to endure up to 4 qualifying rounds, each requiring the contestants to outlast their other competitors in the heat, taking from 4 to 13 minutes. The 2008 final took 17 minutes to decide the men’s winner.
If you can’t get an idea of what this feels like, American Sports journalist Rick Reilly competed in the 2007 World Sauna Championships, and describes his experience in his new book, Sports from Hell: My Search for the World’s Dumbest Competition. There is an excerpt from it on ESPN.com. In it he describes his experience:
We went in, and it was so instantly, shockingly, insanely hot, my brain just stopped working. It was like walking into a bonfire and pulling up a chair in the middle of it. My strategy was to go in and keep time by the 30-second water splashes, but that plan was scrapped approximately seven seconds in. Thinking literally hurt. I tried to stare at the rocks and not blink, because blinking hurt. I tried to take very few breaths, because breathing hurt. I was sure flames were coming out of my mouth. My back seemed to have ignited. I was convinced my ears were literally on fire, but if I moved even slightly, they hurt more. I tried sitting up higher, but it was even hotter. I tried crouching down more, but then I was nearer to the unforgiving rocks. Then came the hideous, cruel, pitiless splashes of water, each one lasting three seconds. I was just about to bolt into the fresh air when — miraculously — the tall, skinny guy next to me ran out. Amazing! I wasn’t last! I had no idea how much time had elapsed — four minutes? Six? I promised myself: When I get to the point where I can no longer stand it, I’ll count 60 seconds and go.
Four seconds later, I decided I could no longer stand it.
So I started counting. One, two, three … It was the longest minute of my life. At 60 I went barreling out. Watching other heats, I’d wondered why even losers came out grinning and raising their hands in victory, but now I knew. The cool air was so beautiful, so redeeming, so life giving. You could French-kiss Osama bin Laden.
I looked at the clock. 3:10? That was it? When did the first guy bolt? “2:40,” I was told. Which meant I’d counted my 60 seconds in 30.
If you just want to watch the proceedings, admission costs € 15 each day.
Author and Sports commentator Rick Reilly wrote a thoughtful post this week on the tragedy at this year’s Sauna World Championships. He profiled his experience as a competitor in his book Sports from Hell
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