Dying for bragging rights: Russian dies during sauna competition

It’s hard for people outside of Finland to understand the Fin’s “Sauna Culture” and how something this extreme would be done for a few piddling prizes. More for bragging rights than anything. It just doesn’t seem worth a person’s life to me.

Organizers say this is the last time the competition will ever be held. The competition started in 1999, and this is the first time someone died during the event.

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 was pronounced dead late Saturday after he collapsed in the sauna alongside reigning champion Timo Kaukonen of Finland. Medical workers pulled both men out of the sauna and administered first aid in front of nearly 1,000 spectators in the southern Finnish town of Heinola.