Epress.am News from Armenia
The two finalists in Finland’s annual World Sauna Championships were rushed to hospital before the competition ended Saturday evening and the Russian contestant died, organisers said, AFP reports.
The “Russian competitor has died in (the) Sauna World Championships,” the head of the competition Ossi Arvela said in a statement.
He added that the Finnish finalist had been taken from the competition location in Heinola, 138 kilometres (86 miles) north of Helsinki, further south to a hospital in the larger city of Lahti for treatment.
He told AFP that the two finalists were Russian Vladimir Ladyzhensky and Timo Kaukonen of Finland.
Kaukonen won last year’s championships and Ladyzhensky had also figured among the favorites ahead of Saturday’s meet, in which participants were asked to withstand a sweltering 110 degrees Celsius (230 degrees Fahrenheit) for as long as possible.