Sports That Are Better Than Soccer: Sauna World Championships

In our latest installment of our future award nominated 4,029,093-part series ? that?s how many sports are better than soccer! ? we take you all the way to the Finland for a sport where a bunch of disgusting, shirtless people sit in a sauna together and sweat like the dickens!

That?s right, it?s the 10^th annual Sauna World Championships. (How has this been going on for 10 years and no one knowing?) For the event, over 160 men and women from 20 different countries strip down to a bathing suit and see who can stay in the sauna the longest. And, well, that?s it. The game works because of it?s simplicity!

Some stats regarding the competition:

Finnish Timo Kaukonen won the men?s event by staying in the sauna for three minutes, 46 seconds. And Tatyana Arkhipenko from Russian took the women?s title with a time of three minutes, nine seconds.

If those times sound unspectacular, bear in mind that the saunas were heated to 110c, and half a litre of water was poured on the sizzling stones every 30 seconds, making it far more grueling than the average relaxing sauna, which is 70-80c.

So there you have it. Think you can manage longer than four minutes? (And if you can?t, you?re a pussy.) Then go ahead and book your plane ticket today! And hey, even if you don?t walk away as the winner, you do get the joy of getting to look at eye candy like this:

That pays for the plan ticket itself!