22. Januar 2011

Neue Positionen im Verein Saunaritter e.V.

Am letzten Mittwoch haben wir nicht nur neue Mitglieder getauft, sondern auch Vereinsmitglieder für neue Aufgaben gewinnen können.

  1. Sven übernimmt das Amt des Pressesprechers. 
  2. Klaus unterstützt die Organisationsarbeit für Veranstaltungen, die in der Burg stattfinden.
  3. Michi übernimmt ein neues Amt names "Road Captain".

20. Januar 2011

Diana und Ricardo sind neue Saunaritter!

Gestern Abend wurden Diana und Ricardo neu in den Verein aufgenommen. Damit haben wir jetzt 30 Mitglieder!

Ricardo wird als erster Saunaritter in Stralsund bei den Deutschen Meisterschaften 2011 in der Jugend antreten. Die Tatsache, dass er mit seinen erst 13 Jahren bereits tapfer mit uns auf der obersten Reihe im Ritteraufguss sitzt und dort immer recht lange aushält spricht dafür, dass er zu den Medaillenanwärtern gezählt werden muss.

Unser Materialwart und Zeremonienmeister Stefan nahm die feierliche Taufe der neuen Saunaritter vor. Bei der Gelegenheit wurden auch die neuen Saunaritter Jürgen und Günni "Terminator" feierlich in unseren Kreis aufgenommen. Allein Yvonne "I-Phone" steht die Prozedur noch bevor.

Nach einigen mahnenden Worten zu den Verpflichtungen der neuen Saunaritter, schlug Stefan jeden der Neuen mit einer Aufgusskelle zum Saunaritter, dann forderte er sie feierlich auf, nun die oberste Reihe zu betreten und leerte als symbolisches Zeichen der Zugehörigkeit zu unserem Verein einen Eimer Wasser mit ein paar Tropfen Schweiß  von jedem anwesenden Saunaritter über dem Ofen aus.

15. Januar 2011

Die Zeit der Trauer ist vorbei!

Timo ist wieder zu Hause und vor ein paar Tagen war er auch schon wieder in der Sauna! Zwar nur kurz und nur im Stehen, aber immerhin.

Ende Februar findet in Finnland ein kleines gemütliches Saunatreffen statt, an dem die Saunaritter selbstverständlich teilnehmen werden.

Am letzten Sonntag wurde vom schwedischen Fernsehen eine Dokumentation über Timo und die Saunaweltmeisterschaft 2010 ausgestrahlt.

(DER LINK FUNKTIONIERT NICHT MEHR, WER DEN CLIP SEHEN WILL, MÖGE SICH BITTE AN UNS WENDEN)

Es ist eine großartige Dokumentation mit vielen bislang unveröffentlichten Bildern und Timo erzählt über sich und das Saunieren.

Die meisten Wortbeiträge sind in Finnisch mit schwedischen Untertiteln. Da ich ein bisschen Schwedisch kann, habe ich versucht, alles auf Englisch zu übersetzen.


00:30 - They are in for six minutes. Six minutes - amazing!
00:51 - An incredible fight ...
01:53 - There's been almost five months since the sauna World Cup.
01:59 - Men final in August had a tragic end when the Russian participant died -
02:05 - - and the Finn Timo Kaukonen was badly injured.
02:27 - Of course I have realized that ...
02:31 - ... I will be like this for a couple years for a just few minutes of sauna.
02:38 - After the incident it has been asked -
02:41 - - how it could go as it went in the men's finals.
02:47 - What got them to sit in the sauna so long that they crossed all the critical limits?
02:55 - It is the first time in my 20-year career as a doctor in burns -
03:02 - - that we get a patient from the sauna -
03:07 - - who experienced severe skin burns ...
03:13 - ... and also damage to the respiratory tract, and that the injuries occurred after seven minutes.
03:20 - Timo has been an avid sauna bather as long as I know him.
03:25 - He has inherited that from his father.
03:31 - I have loved the sauna since I was a little boy.
03:38 - My father went into the sauna all the time, and I went with him a lot.
03:45 - In my teens I realized that I could stand more heat than some others ...
03:51 - I had been in a sauna with friends until they thought I was dead.
03:58 - When I started going to the bathhouse and into the sauna there -
04:02 - - I was disturbed that no one threw water on the stones.
04:09 - Then I noticed that I was already used more.
04:14 - Central Hospital
04:16 - It's a Finnish tradition to compete in throwing water on the stove in the sauna.
04:23 - Everyone here has certainly visited a traditional Finnish bathhouse ...
04:30 - ... a public bathhouse where you see small tough old men -
04:35 - who pour water on the oven until all the others go out. Then the last one inside is happy.
04:46 - In the beginning ... it was not so serious.
04:51 - But if you take it seriously ...
04:55 - ... it looks like you can withstand more heat over the years.
05:02 - There is a group of 20, 30 people from Heinola ...
05:13 - each one of them wants to win. When 30 people want to win ...
05:23 - ... they make certainly every effort to win.
05:28 - That is why they sit there.
05:54 - In the sauna-WM competition he who sits longest in the sauna wins.
06:00 - In the extremely hot contest sauna you sit about two to four minutes.
06:09 - When the competitors show that everything is okay when they are asked to
06:16 - is it difficult to intervene.
06:20 - As long as I have followed events in Europe and in Finland ...
06:25 - ... there was always a last competitor.
06:29 - It looks crazy even when it all ends normally.
06:40 - I think that when throwing water bites the skin a little bit ...
06:49 - ... you always want to win and test your limits.
06:52 - Once you have started you get a taste ...
06:57 - ... there is hardly one who burns his skin for nothing.
07:05 - That's not why people participate ...
07:11 - ... and go to extremes.
07:14 - When a guy says: "Ears are burning"
07:17 - another one answers: "I don't feel anything", even when his ears might be burning for five minutes.
07:32 - It's just awful. Particularly the new sauna in Heinola.
07:36 - It starts immediately. It's so hot when you walk in the heat is everywhere.
07:43 - When the first water hits the rocks, the heat hits you immediately.
07:49 - The sauna bath begins immediately and not after five minutes.
07:56 - It burns, it burns the skin.
07:59 - We're just trying to protect ourselves as much as possible with our arms.
08:07 - That's why we are sitting like this, to protect our body with our arms.
08:11 - That is why in the transplantation surgery they took the skin from here. It was not burned.
08:21 - At first you feel a burning sensation. And it gets very hard to breathe.
08:35 - Almost half are from other countries. We have 15 nationalities here.
08:40 - We see teams from Germany, Russia, Poland, White Russia ...
08:47 - They have a very passionate attitude to competitions and sauna bathing.
08:57 - They are even more enthusiastic and dedicated than the Finns.
09:48 - In the past competitions people sat in the sauna until they were dizzy.
09:56 - But the new sauna is so damned hot that the skin is suffering from the start.
10:00 - If you wonder what you need to stay inside ...
10:08 - It is to stay focused and forget everything else. You try to hold out.
10:12 - It is sickly evil.
11:10 - Sauna races have become increasingly popular.
11:12 - They have become tougher, and the organizers have also encountered doping cases.
11:29 - There have been discussions about -
11:33 - if anyone has used pain-relieving medicine
11:38 - or something kind of soothing oils.
11:44 - On the first day of the competition, before Ladyzhenskiy went into the sauna
11:50 - unnecessary fat on his back was discovered.
11:57 - That fat was not naturally there.
12:01 - So his back was washed and scrubbed as much as possible, and he could participate.
12:08 - It was announced that if he went ahead in the competition
12:13 - no fat on his back would be accepted any more.
12:22 - It was checked before each round
12:25 - but by touching it you can just check the skin.                                                                                 
12:32 - More thorough tests and checks could not be done.
12:42 - No, it never happened to me.
12:45 - It is only recently that fat has been used as a protection.
12:52 - Earlier, no one has deliberately wearing any fat stuff.
13:13 - Timo Kaukonen is a sauna king. He has won the World Cup five times.
13:20 - He is so good that the betting agency have taken the World Cup into their program.
13:27 - They provide completely different odds to him than to others.
13:33 - When I do something, I do it in deadly earnest.
13:40 - I'm a little too enthusiastic. If I have promised something, I want to see it being finished.
13:47 - Early this year I was with same buddies participating
13:52 - in a 100 km skating contest in Kuopio.
13:57 - The winter was quite cold, and on the race day it was -25 degrees.
14:06 - There were many who gave up, and many who tried to cancel the event.
14:13 - It was too cold for them.
14:17 - Of course I carried on, I thought of my team more than of me.
14:22 - I did not think someone would beat me, so I held out and went for 100 kilometers.
14:32 - One toe was frozen in the boot.
14:35 - There are many who have asked why I just could not cancel it.
14:42 - But that's just not my style.
14:55 - All finalists are always tough bathers in every year.
15:03 - Vladimir competed for the second consecutive year.
15:08 - We knew he was good in the sauna.
15:15 - Timo was known even better than before. He is well known.
15:20 - It was known that he also is a very persistent guy.
15:26 - But seven minutes should just not be possible.
16:00 - The finale meant to Timo to keep the championship title in Finland.
16:40 - Some wondered in the end how they could stay there. I know how it feels.
16:49 - The pain is as if ...
16:53 - ... after four minutes you turn into a charcoal ...
16:58 - or something like that.
17:03 - As I sat in the first round
17:08 - for three minutes and 40 seconds it felt like hell.
17:21 - He gives in readily in mad projects. He can easily be persuaded ...
17:28 - ... to do crazy things.
17:33 - Another thing is his sisu.
17:36 - He likes everything that has to do with betting.
17:42 - Once he is in a game, he figures it out until the very end.
17:55 - During the championship weekend the referees behind the door checked if everything is okay
18:00 - and the participants responded with a thumbs up that everything is okay
18:09 - They responded until the last moment
18:12 - And more often towards the end
18:16 - But why they got the thumbs up ... or didn't they even realized they did it?
18:29 - You must know the Finnish people's attitude
18:32 - We will not give up before a Russian!
18:36 - some participants focuss in such a way
18:44 - so that they do not feel the pain so much
18:48 - Timo said to me that the pain on the skin was not what limited him
19:33 - I do not know ... I knew myself before.
19:39 - I have a very good ability to tolerate pain
19:43 - I have a high pain threshold and a strong sisu.
19:48 - I've won in several years.
19:53 - I have often wondered how long I could sit there
19:58 - after it has finished.
20:06 - But I never thought that you can sit there so long after almost everyone left the sauna
20:15 - When the Russians and I were the last ...
20:20 - in the final after four minutes something happened
20:26 - You could no longer think properly
20:30 - I have heard that in the final stage I started to talk ...
20:35 - but if I was talking to the Russian or to the judge, I do not know.
20:42 - What I know is that I was no longer totally normal.
21:25 - The truth may never come up.
21:29 - Some of the questions will be answered when the criminal investigation is finished.
21:55 - Everything is still a little unclear ... or very unclear in fact.
22:00 - But I feel that I'm beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel
22:10 - Externally, he has changed a lot compared to how he looked before
22:15 - But Timo's personality and ways of thinking are the same as before.
22:25 - I'm sick of eager to go to the sauna
22:27 - We went to the sauna every day ... every day.
22:31 - Of course I miss it.
22:35 - A friend did not bring flowers, but a sauna broom. I was so longing!
22:43 - But the sauna is and -
22:47 - it has always been part of the Finnish tradition.
22:52 - We have always been sauna bathing in the family.
23:03 - The boys like it, my wife likes it ...
23:11 - What happened in Heinola happened. I can't remember ...
23:16 - It could have happened in any race at any time.
23:20 - I do not blame the organizers in Heinola for anything.
23:26 - I just took a bit more than I should in a sauna.
23:32 - That's how it is.

13. Januar 2011

3 neue Saunaritter

Die Stimmung war gestern Abend beim Training sehr ausgelassen, was sicherlich auch an unseren 3 neuen Mitgliedern Yvonne, Günni und Jürgen lag. Wir heißen Euch im Verein herzlich willkommen und freuen uns auf viele heiße Aufgüsse.

Auch bei Klaus möchten wir uns herzlich bedanken. Er hat uns spüren lassen, dass unser Hitzeempfinden doch noch funktioniert :-)