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.

[ESPN.com]

Image from the finals of the Sauna World Championships, 2009. Mr. Ladyzhenski is at the far left. Mr. Kaukonen is at the far right.

This past weekend, the Sauna World Championships in Heinloa Finland ended in tragedy as the two finalists, last year’s third place finisher Vladimir Ladyzhenskiy of Russia and last year’s champion Timo Kaukonen of Finland, stopped responding to the judges during the finals of the competition. Mr. Ladyzhenskiy perished en route to the hospital. At last report, Mr. Kaukonen was in the hospital in stable condition.

According to reports, both men had spent more than 6 minutes in a sauna above 110°C (230°F) where 1/2 liter of water was poured on the rocks every 30 seconds. Medical personnel for the competition knock on the windows at regular intervals, and the contestants are to respond with a thumbs up. In Saturday night’s competition, Mr. Kaukonen began behaving erratically, and paramedics immediately entered the sauna and removed both men. The round began with six competitors in the sauna. The other four had left under their own power before five minutes had elapsed.

Many news outlets are reporting that this was the last running of the Sauna World Championships. Press releases issued earlier today by the City of Heinloa, the organizer of the contest state that nothing has been decided yet. The first official Sauna World Championship was held in 1999.  This year’s competition was the 12th with about 130 participants from 15 countries.

Mr. Ladyzhensky was 62 years old. He regularly competed in sauna endurance competitions. He had been a champion Greco-Roman wrestler and worked as a find administrator in his native Russia. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his friends and family.

We at Saunascape hope the organizers can find a way forward. Despite criticism of the event, it generates a lot of publicity for the sauna culture, and filled a need as informal competitions commonly occurred in Finnish saunas.

Unlike last year’s sweat lodge deaths, this event was supervised by trained medical personnel and each competitor was to be certified by their physician as fit to compete before entering the competition. Is it dangerous? Yes, but aren’t all sports where people push themselves to the limit?

The HMS Carlskrona at its home port

The San Jose Mercury News earlier this week published a profile of life aboard the HMS Carlskrona – A Swedish warship currently deployed off the coast of Somalia to help in the battle against the pirates there.

One of the facilities available for the crew to relax in their off-duty hours is the ship’s onboard sauna:

Taking a steam together is an essential way of getting to know someone in much of Scandinavia, said Mika Raunu, a sailor in the Finnish navy. It’s in the same tradition of Scandinavian egalitarianism that sees officers sharing rooms with lower-ranking sailors.

It also has led to a few cultural misunderstandings.

Lt. Cmdr. Carl Sjostrand told of a Swedish captain who invited a U.S. admiral to meet his senior officers after a formal ship’s dinner. The American was led down to the sauna in full dress uniform—only to end up shaking hands with a line of sweaty, smiling and naked Swedish sailors.

Like all facilities, the saunas are used by both men and women, and the Swedish military does not segregate living quarters or bathrooms.

Saunas, massages help Swedish sailors hunt pirates – The San Jose Mercury News

Images by Xiziz on Wikimedia Commons (boat) and Matti Mattilla on Flickr (letters)

Image by Big Ben(Gaijin Bikers) on Flickr

After a good sauna, it’s always nice to cool down naturally, by relaxing and letting the breeze gently take the heat away from your body. Of course, since the sauna is best enjoyed with as little clothing as possible, if you’re enjoying the sauna during the day, you probably want a good sunscreen.

The EWG’s 2010 Sunscreen Guide, their 4th annual, was just published detailing the best and worst sunscreens on the market in the US, and giving detailed analysis of more than 1400 sunscreen products. We’ve embedded their widget in this post so you can check how your preferred sunscreen rates.

Many sunscreens available in the U.S. may be the equivalent of modern-day snake oil, plying customers with claims of broad-spectrum protection but not providing it, while exposing people to potentially hazardous chemicals that can penetrate the skin into the body. When only 8 percent of sunscreens rate high for safety and efficacy, it’s clear that consumers concerned about protecting themselves and their families are left with few good options.

-Jane Houlihan, EWG Senior VP for Research

Their 9 Surprising Truths about Sunscreen are very surprising:

1. Sunscreen alone may not prevent skin cancer.
2. The risk of Melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, may be increased while wearing sunscreen, for some people.
3. High SPF products may be more harmful, suppressing sunburns, while allowing other skin damage to occur.
4. Sunscreen may inhibit the production of Vitamin D.
5. Vitamin A in sunscreen may speed the development of cancer.
6. Free radical damage from UV rays may be worse with sunscreen than it is on bare skin alone.
7. Hormone disruptors or Nanomaterials are present in most US sunscreen formulations.
8. European sunscreens are better than US sunscreens, because
9. The US FDA has lagged approving new compounds, and has spent 33 years developing a sunscreen safety policy.

The Environmental Working Group is a US Non-profit dedicated to educating the public about hidden toxic chemicals and working to change government policy that allow, promote or subsidize the use of these toxins.

[EWG's 2010 Sunscreen Guide] via Business Pundit

Thanks for taking the time to click through. If you like what you see, why don’t you subscribe to our Feed or by Email? If you’re looking for a place to see if you can take the heat, why not search for a sauna near you? Better yet, if you know of one we don’t have listed, tell us about it.

For anyone wondering what SodaHead is, it’s the service that hosts our polls, like the one sitting in the left sidebar there. (If you haven’t already, take a minute to vote and share your opinion on this pressing issue.) Every day, they pick a poll for each of their categories and feature it as the daily “SODASTAR.” From the looks of it, we beat out Phone-Sex Working Moms, Fat Burning Underwear, and The Mom Who Had Her 5-Year Old Arrested. Tough competition indeed!

We’re anxiously waiting for our copy to arrive at the Saunascape kitchens. In the meantime, we’ll rely on Debbie Vanni’s review at The Culinary Cellar:

So what does the sauna have to do with a cookbook , you ask?  It is known that sauna bathing depletes the body of fluids and electrolytes, thus making it necessary to replenish them with a refreshing drink and salty snack.  The sauna and the ensuing drink and treats together provide food for the body and soul, hence the title of the cookbook.  The Finns will cook food inside the sauna as it heats up.  Some of the popular items include sausages and fish.  Sausages are wrapped in foil and placed directly on the sauna rocks.  Others like to have sandwiches or salted salmon ready to eat inside their homes after relaxing in the sauna.  The cookbook has chapters on all the traditional sauna foods, along with wonderful bread recipes, desserts, beverages, sauces and condiments, and even Christmas foods.  Before all the recipes, the first chapter explains the culture of the sauna itself in Finnish life, which is fascinating.  It has been a ritual in Finland for thousands of years, and is an integral part of entertaining and family life.  People will build their sauna before they even build the home alongside it.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the sauna used for cooking. At Therme Erding near Munich, they have their “Bakery Sauna” where the sauna stove is used as an oven to bake bread while you’re enjoying the heat.

[The Sauna Cookbook: Food for Body and Soul] via The Culinary Cellar

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.

[Sauna World Championships] via ESPN.com

Most interesting is the post on the Dogo Onsen in Japan. According to Hotsprung, it was the inspiration for the bath house in the excellent movie Spirited Away(which probably deserves its own post here).

Hotsprung also has a very informative post on the Onsen, a style of Japanese Bath, plus some first-hand reviews of several spas in the Seattle and Vancouver area.

Take a trip over and check out Hotsprung.

Commenting is done on the Disqus system. To make leaving a comment as easy as possible, you can log in through your Facebook, Yahoo, OpenId or Twitter accounts. Please give it a spin if you’ve got a favorite sauna that we’ve listed here.

We’ve also added star rankings for all the saunas. These don’t require you to be logged in at all. Click on the stars and your ratings will magically appear.

Don’t forget, if you’re favorite sauna isn’t listed, you can always submit it to our database.

Photo of some brave souls swimming in the ice by Lauri Väin on Flickr

Here in the Northeast US, spring is here and this year spring temperatures along with it, but in Finland, the weather is still decidedly winter.  The Helsinki Times recently published an article on ice swimming in Vantaa, a 30-minute bus ride from downtown Helsinki.

Kuusijärvi provides all you might expect from a swim-and-sauna combination. Electric saunas at different temperature levels and a traditional smoke sauna nicely complement the chilly plunges, although roughly one-third of the swimmers choose to skip the hot room altogether and simply resort to the heated or even cold locker-rooms available. To work up a sweat beforehand, you can also opt for a snowshoe hike in the surrounding woods or a walk on the beaten trail network criss-crossing them, depending on the season. Swimsuit or trunks and towel can be rented.

The Kuusijärvi outdoor centre has electric saunas available for € 6 and a smoke sauna available for € 12. Basic information is available on their website.

[Helsinki Times]