Obscure sports: Sauna Championships banned after tragedy strikes Finland

In Finland, winter often strikes early. It strikes with the type of chill that seems to freeze a person's insides, and transform bones into brittle icicles.

On a comfortable day in Aug. 2010, death struck early in Finland, as well. But it had noth­ing to do with the up­coming winter cold: It had to do with the heat.

Every year since 1999, Heinola, Finland has hosted what may be considered one of the strangest competitions in all of sports: The Sauna World Championships.

After a group of locals were banned from the city's swimming hall for contesting sauna-sitting competitions, the Sauna World Championship is an event that Sports Il­lustrated writer Rick Reilly called "quite pos­sibly, the world's dumb­est sport."

The goal of the cham­pionships is simple: to be the last man sweat­ing. Achieving this goal, however, is no easy task.

Beginning with a gru­eling set of preliminary "heats," contestants must sit in saunas that are hot enough to slow-roast a chicken.

With a starting tem­perature of 230 degrees, a liter of water is poured onto hot rocks every 30 seconds, which creates a sweltering, steamy environment in which competitors are allowed to wipe sweat only from their faces.

After the competition is whittled down to six, a final round is contested with the final person in­side the sauna declared the champion.

The 2010 champion­ship may have begun just like any other, but it didn't end that way.

Some men may have an incredible knack for enduring ridiculous tem­peratures and Finn Timo Kaukonen appears to be one of those men.

As a five-time world champion who routinely trains in a sauna that reaches temperatures of 280 degrees, Kaukonen was once again the odds-on favorite to win in 2010.

Meeting him in the finals was another man who did not toast easily. Russian Vladimir La­dyzhensky had finished third in this outlandish competition before and this year, he planned to sweat his way to victory.

Despite having en­dured much higher tem­peratures than the 230 degrees of 2010's sau­nas, Kaukonen was hesi­tant to enter the sauna for the final round.

"It doesn't feel good getting in there this year," Kaukonen told sportsespn.com before the final. "But I will clench my teeth and see where this leads us."

With six minutes showing off the official time clock and sheets of sweat cascading down both their chests, both men collapsed and were feverishly dragged out of the sauna by a team of paramedics.

With a stunned crowd looking on, paramedics rushed both sauna sit­ters to the hospital. La­dyzhensky didn't make it, dying en route to the hospital and Kaukonen suffered severe burns, but eventually recov­ered.

Ladyzhensky's death was not only the end a life, but also marked the end of a sport. Follow­ing the tragedy, competi­tion officials announced that the Sauna World Championships would never be held again.