In Oymyakon, Siberia, temperatures are currently below 50 degrees below zero. Nevertheless, a marathon was held there. The winner almost had to abandon his run.
Oymyakon – The coldest inhabited place in the world is located in Yakutia, a Russian republic in eastern Siberia. The village of Oymyakon (462 inhabitants) celebrates itself as the cold pole of the planet; temperatures colder than minus 50 degrees Celsius are normal there in winter. But that doesn't stop the locals from organizing a marathon there every year in mid-January – even when there is war on Russia's western border.
When the participants started there on Friday, the thermometer showed minus 52 degrees Celsius. The runners were medically examined before the start. Along the way, they were provided with broth, hot tea and snacks at the aid stations along the route.
Marathon in Siberia: Winner “almost got lost on the way”
According to local media, a total of 38 runners, who were wrapped up from head to toe against the cold, took part in the marathon and half marathon.
The winner was Konstantin Dragunov, a 24-year-old Russian student who covered the 42.2 km in three hours and seven minutes. The air temperature at the weather station in Oymyakon fell to minus 54.9 degrees Celsius by the end of the run!
“I almost got lost on the route,” said Loud the Mirror the winner from the city of Megino-Kangalassky, which is also in Yakutia. “The marathon is unpredictable, that’s what I was told in advance,” said Dragunov. But things got even worse, he said. “After 33 kilometers I almost fainted.”
During the marathon it was almost “warm” by local standards.
But the student recovered and crossed the finish line first with a thick crust of ice on his face. He dedicated his victory in the coldest marathon in the world to his grandfather Semyon Dragunov, who recently passed away.
During the marathon it was almost “warm” for the local conditions. In Oymyakon, minus 67.8 degrees Celsius was measured on February 6, 1933, the same as in Verkhoyansk, also in Yakutia. The minus 71.2 degrees Celsius from 1926 indicated on the Cold Pole Monument in Oymyakon are not recognized. A scientist is said to have only calculated this temperature at the time.
The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was minus 89.2 Celsius on July 21, 1983, at the Vostok Research Station in Antarctica. On August 10, 2010, using satellite data, a temperature of minus 93.2 degrees Celsius was calculated as the absolute cold record on Earth.
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