Aufguss Has Four World Championships. Meet the People Winning Them

Michael Niedermair was not a sauna-goer before 2016, when a hotel job led him to sauna master training. Ten years later, in September, he won his second aufguss world championship at SATAMA, a sauna resort on Lake Scharmützelsee about an hour southeast of Berlin. His show was called Burned Identity. The jury gave it 598.5 of a possible 750 points, 14 ahead of Romania’s Andrei Serban, according to the official results.

Aufguss is German for infusion. A sauna master pours water or ice scented with essential oils onto hot stones, then moves the heat around the room with a towel, usually to music. Spas in Germany and its neighbors run several a day. The competitive version adds a story, costumes, lighting and a jury that sits on the benches in the heat with everyone else. The Times of London called the championship “the Eurovision of sauna.” GQ went with the Sauna Olympics.

Both describe one event. Competitive aufguss has four world championships, each with its own idea of what a great sauna session is, and the best sauna masters compete in more than one. Here is how they work, who won this season, and what keeps the people who do it coming back.

A sauna session, scored like figure skating

A show aufguss at the world championship runs 12 to 15 minutes. Six jurors inside the sauna score each one. The highest and lowest marks are dropped and the rest are scaled to a 10-judge total, under the 2026 rules. The jury catalogue gives each juror 75 points to award a solo sauna master:

• Theme and implementation, 30 points: storyline, atmosphere, scenery, sound, lights and acting.
• Waving, 15: classical towel technique, show technique, timing with the music and smooth transitions.
• Heat, 12: how it rises, how evenly it spreads, and whether guests stay comfortable.
• Fragrance, 10: at least three natural aromas, and how the water, ice and oils are used. A synthetic product caps this score at 5.
• Professionalism, 8: organization, cleanliness, hygiene and performance.

Teams of two or three can earn 15 more points for harmony, synchronization, interaction and choreography. A dropped towel costs half a point. “Just like figure skating, every detail counts,” Lasse Eriksen, the Norwegian president of Aufguss WM, told Vanity Fair. “One dropped towel or one unsafe moment is like falling on a jump.”

The heat is the point of the pageantry. Water hits the stones, steam and scent rise to the ceiling, and the sauna master catches that cloud with a towel and sends it around the room. Jury president Martijn Vanhoorelbeke calls it “chasing a cloud.” The test, Travis Talmadge of New York’s Bathhouse told GQ, is reaching the top row, the hottest part of the sauna, without making the heat unbearable. It is not a contest of who can take the most heat: thermal comfort is one of the scored lines, so a master who overheats the room loses points. The word GQ heard constantly at the championship was “clean”: no fumbles, no dropped towels, no missed cues. The highest compliment is “Ooh, that’s pretty.”

SATAMA’s show sauna is an oval with four tiers of benches that seat 200, or 230 “when they’re packed in like sardines,” GQ wrote. Guests line up half an hour before each show, and performances run from 10 a.m. to 9:15 p.m. with the room at about 180°F. “This is not normal sauna; we are not normal people,” Eriksen told the Observer. “We are sauna freaks.”

Four world championships, four ideas of a great aufguss

The show. Aufguss WM calls its championship the place “where ritual, performance and theatre meet.” This year’s field of 40 solo sauna masters and 40 teams came through national qualifiers in 18 countries, from Japan to Canada, and a playoff round in the Netherlands. Its about page keeps the priorities in order: aufguss began as a health ritual, and that “must not be lost in the aufguss show, rather the entertainment value is an addition and support.” The association, based in Bielefeld, Germany, has started calling itself Aufguss World Masters.

The classic. The same association started the Modern Classic Cup in 2025 for sauna masters who want to be judged on the ritual alone: one master, oils, music and a towel. Its line is “where tradition takes the stage.” Talmadge, the Bathhouse co-founder, competed at both world championships this year and told GQ the classic is the version he loves most. “When I dream of aufguss, I don’t dream of show aufguss,” he said. “I dream of a random Wednesday night when the vibe hits and the room gets liftoff.”

The battle. The Aufguss World Cup Freestyle puts two sauna masters in the same sauna for three rounds, with separate women’s and men’s titles. In the first round each master works the side of the room where they poured, and they switch sides for the second. In the third, the battle round, the rules let both move anywhere. Judges watch timing with the music, clean catches, contact with guests, hygiene and heat management. Competitors dress in gladiator or Roman style, though outfits earn no points. Rob and Jacqueline Keijzer of the Netherlands, who perform as The Keijzers, created the format with Leszek Pustułka, who built its arena at the Termy Rzymskie baths in Czeladź, a complex modeled on drawings of the baths of ancient Pompeii. Rob Keijzer won three straight world titles from 2014 to 2016. “Show that you’re better than your opponent, but with respect for each other,” he told Chapeau Magazine about his freestyle battles.

The herbal. The Sauna Herbal Cup began in Czechia in 2013, and Pavel Hofrichter, who chairs the Czech association of sauna masters, is one of its founders. Its judging catalogue calls for “100% natural herbal products,” from essential oils and hydrolates to herbs and smoke, and takes points off for theater. “You will not see any specific storyline,” the organizers write, “but the nature becomes story and inspiration itself.” Competitors are also scored on peeling, a body scrub given in the steam bath, and the overall winner is crowned King of Herbal. “We return to the roots of sauna, to living nature, herbs, whisks, scents and real contact with the guest,” Hofrichter said in an August announcement.

The circuits share their stars. David Zatočil of Czechia was fourth at the world championship in September, won the freestyle men’s title in 2025 and finished second in February. Jiří Žákovský was sixth at SATAMA two weeks before he won the Modern Classic Cup. Slovakia’s Zuzana Špaková was fourth in the world team final and second in the Czech round of the Herbal Cup. Lennart Kloß and Joli Irvine both competed at SATAMA, and both are on the freestyle circuit’s list of finalists for February. Competitors have a name for the whole crowd: the Aufguss Family.

Niedermair won his second world title with a show about identity

Niedermair is from Kastelbell in South Tyrol’s Vinschgau valley. He came to the sauna after training as a fitness instructor. “Before that, I’d never actually gone to the sauna myself,” he told the local paper der Vinschger in 2024.

He finished second at the 2023 world championship, then won in 2024 at Thermen Bussloo in the Netherlands by 1.6 points over Zatočil, 600.8 to 599.2. Burned Identity also won him the Italian title in May, when Il Nuovo Giornale called it an intense reflection on personal identity and inherited traditions. His partner, Kasia Klajn, is a former world team champion. They met at the 2018 world championship and also compete as a team.

“A world championship is always a great experience,” he told der Vinschger after his first title. “You meet old friends and make new friends. And not least, you take a lot away and learn new things.”

Behind Niedermair and Serban, Róbert Židek and Zatočil of Czechia took third and fourth. The rest of the final eight were Massimo Gelli of Italy, the first Modern Classic Cup champion; Žákovský; Hiroyuki Okami of Japan; and Chris Shenkle, the American actor who won Norway’s titles in 2025.

Barbora Brožová and Hendrik Bißlich won the team title for Czechia with Emily & Tom, which the organizers called an emotional show, scoring 708.5 of 900. It was Brožová’s second team title in a row, after the trio she formed with Židek and Gábor Tapolcai won in Verona in 2025. Elia Beghini and Francesco Sava of Italy took silver, and Eliška Židek Blažková and Kateřina Šmídová of Aquapalace Praha took bronze.

The championship also gives a prize for the funniest show, the Golden Banana. This year it went to Hedda Marie Bay and Christopher Straume for The Hangover, which the organizers said brought the award back to Norway, the country that won the first one.

Czech sauna masters won medals on three circuits this season

In September, Czech teams took gold and bronze at the world championship and Czech soloists took third and fourth. In October, Žákovský won the Modern Classic Cup. In February, Veronika Švandová and Zatočil finished second in the women’s and men’s freestyle finals, a year after Monika Kuncová and Zatočil won both freestyle titles. The fourth circuit, the Herbal Cup, is a Czech competition with a Prague final.

It happened fast. Hofrichter gave the first lecture on sauna ceremonies at a Czech industry conference in 2009, which he calls the beginning of experiential sauna in the country. By 2019 he was telling the Czech news agency ČTK that the field was growing “like a rocket” as his association trained new sauna masters. “When I came to Prague more than five years ago to visit a few saunas, there was almost nothing,” Lay Pang Ong, a veteran aufguss judge, said in the same report. “The level in Czechia rose fast.” Wellness centers train their own. Infinit, a Czech wellness chain, put every new hire through a 40-to-60-hour course in aromatherapy, towel technique, body language and public speaking, ending in an exam and a trial shift, Deník reported in 2022.

Women won or shared three of this season’s Czech medals, which would not surprise Žákovský. “Women sauna masters, at least in Czechia, are at the top level,” he told Deník. “They definitely outdo most men in the field.” Joli Irvine of the United States put the national styles this way to Culture of Bathe-ing: “Each country has a specialty. Japan is intricate. The Czech Republic is super powerful.”

Like Niedermair, Žákovský had never been in a sauna when he started. He was a lifeguard at a water park when he was asked to help with the ceremonies. He said no the first time: he didn’t want “to make a clown of myself in front of people and make it even hotter for them in the sauna than it already is,” he told Deník. He gave in after a few more asks. “Those ten minutes in the sauna changed my life.”

Rob Keijzer, whom Žákovský lists among his role models, beat him for the 2016 world title. Žákovský won the next year, and he still counts the year he finished second as his best: “That’s when I did the best ceremony of my life.” This October he won the Modern Classic Cup from a field of 21, ahead of Emma Chládková of Slovakia and Gelli.

Americans have competed for two seasons, and Europe has noticed

The United States sent its first sauna masters to the world championship in 2025. Aufguss USA, the official US member of Aufguss WM, was founded by Design for Leisure, the hydrothermal spa design firm led by Don Genders. Like every new country, the US got one solo and one team place in its first year. It earned two of each for 2026. “Earning expanded qualification in the second year is an exceptional outcome,” Eriksen said in the announcement.

Competitor applications for the US nationals doubled this year. The May nationals ran at Bathhouse Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, whose sauna seats more than 100, and at Bathhouse Flatiron in Manhattan, with jurors from Denmark, Norway, Japan, Belgium and the UK. Sisters Joli and Alexi Irvine, professional dancers from the Las Vegas stage who are now sauna masters at Lapis Spa & Wellness at Fontainebleau Las Vegas, won the team title for the second year running. Tovi Wayne, Bathhouse’s director of sauna experience, won the solo title and took medals in all three categories. Talmadge won the first US Modern Classic title. Harvia was the platinum sponsor and official sauna partner.

Eriksen sees what the Americans bring. “We’re seeing American performers with real stage backgrounds entering the Aufguss world,” he told Vanity Fair. “They’re bringing timing, presence, and professionalism that elevate the entire field.” The Irvines rehearse at 6 a.m. in a gym, with the outline of their sauna taped on the floor. “You cannot fake spatial choreography,” Alexi Irvine told Culture of Bathe-ing. “A lot of us are performers at heart,” Joli Irvine said. At SATAMA they finished 11th of 40 teams with a new show, three places from the final and the best US finish this year. Joli Irvine has since qualified for the freestyle final in Poland.

“If it wasn’t for everyone in the room, it would be nothing,” Wayne said on the Badii Talk podcast. Sarah Spoto, who hosts Badii Talk and placed fourth in the team show at the nationals, put it more simply: “I went to compete, and I found my people.” Genders expects audiences to follow the performers. “Aufguss will be the new nightclub,” he told Culture of Bathe-ing. “You’ll get touring performers like they have in Europe. People will go because of who’s performing.” Bathhouse already runs seven ceremonies a day at its New York locations, included with entry.

Britain’s champions put Princess Diana and Freddie Mercury in a sauna

Britain first competed at the world championship in 2023. “People in the UK are the storytellers of Europe,” Eriksen said in European Spa’s report on April’s UK championships at Galgorm Resort in Northern Ireland. “While other countries specialise in techniques or infusion, you will bring the stories.” He has a request, he told the Observer: “I’d love to see some Shakespeare.”

The 2025 UK team champions, Antonia Longrigg and Kyle Buttner, staged A Royal Escape, a meeting between Princess Diana and Freddie Mercury “with an understandably hell-raising soundtrack,” in the British Sauna Society’s words. Buttner, of Sweheat Sauna in London, won the UK solo title this year. He is the resident sauna master at Aufguss Sauna Experience, which brings guest sauna masters from Germany and Czechia to London and signs its website “Made with Schwitz in London.”

Germany’s champion is 21 and smashed his ice ball with a wrench

Lennart Kloß started training as a pool attendant at Thermen & Badewelt Sinsheim at 16. This summer, at 21, he won the German championship. “Many others believed in me more than I did myself, above all my family and my closest friends,” he told Sinsheim-Lokal.

As one of the youngest in the field at SATAMA, he chose a show about the future: the search for an endless source of power. He brought a whiteboard of blueprints, a folding ruler and a welding mask, and smashed the essential-oil ice ball with a wrench, he told Der Spiegel. He rehearsed for ten months and finished 17th, the best German. “Sauna and theater don’t really go together,” he said. “But if you want to be at the front at the Aufguss World Championship, you have to be a good actor.” His own favorite scents are lime and Swiss stone pine.

He also noticed who was missing. “Nobody came from the ‘motherland’ of sauna,” he said. “For the Finns, it’s too newfangled.” No Finn has competed at the show world championship. Eriksen has made his pitch: “You shouldn’t be afraid of losing your own sauna culture by trying something new like the Aufguss,” he said he has told the Finns, according to The Walrus. The classic format may be the way in. Finland held its own Modern Classic qualifier this year, and its champion, Jura Ilin, placed 11th of 21 at Farris Bad this month.

The championships run on saunas built for hundreds

Every world final needs a sauna that can hold a crowd, and the people who run the sport often run those saunas too. Farris Bad, the Norwegian spa hotel where Eriksen is development manager, hosted this year’s Modern Classic Cup. Aufguss WM vice president Torsten Splanemann-Du Chesne co-founded SATAMA, which has now hosted the world championship five times, in 2013, 2016, 2018, 2023 and 2026. Treasurer Fabian Dolman runs Thermen Resorts, whose Thermen Bussloo hosted the 2024 championship and this year’s playoffs.

Championship weeks fill those rooms. SATAMA drew 600 guests a day, GQ reported. In Czeladź, Pustułka’s Colosseum Sauna Arena holds about 300 people. “I dreamed up the Colosseum,” he told TVS. For the freestyle final in February 2026, tickets ran from €55 to €363 (about $62 to $408), VIP tickets with priority entry to the arena sold out for most days, and most of the week-long packages at the venue’s Pałac Saturna hotel sold out too, according to the organizers’ ticket and hotel flyers. The rooms still listed cost €2,000 to €2,600 (about $2,250 to $2,925) for six nights with tickets. Aquapalace Praha, the Herbal Cup host, has its own sauna team: Židek Blažková and Šmídová took bronze at SATAMA. Verona’s Aquardens opened its Sauna del Deserto, which the organizers billed as the largest sauna in the world, when it hosted in 2025.

Brands pay for the stage. Harvia and its EOS brand, TechnoAlpin Indoor and the essential-oil supplier Aromen are gold sponsors of Aufguss WM, with Bergila, Saunagut, Romana and Aquaspecial at the silver level. The freestyle circuit is inviting new sponsors.

Where to see the champions this winter

• Sauna Herbal Cup world final, Nov. 25 to 29, Aquapalace Praha. The eight best compete in the final on Nov. 28, with exhibitions on Nov. 29. Czech qualifiers Martina Knapková and Špaková are going. A one-day ticket is CZK 1,790 (about $83), two days CZK 2,890 (about $134), and the five-day early-bird pass CZK 4,990 (about $231). The GOLDEN early-bird package, CZK 14,990 (about $693), covers everything except the peeling sessions. Details are on the Herbal Cup event page.
• Sauna Around Week, Nov. 15 to 22, Dolce Vita Hotels, South Tyrol. Židek and Zatočil headline the sauna event days across five hotels near Merano, free for hotel guests, who can use all five. The group also runs show infusions by Italian world champions every Friday and Saturday in November.
• Winter Sauna Carnival, Jan. 29 and 30, 2027, Ikaalinen, Finland. The 2025 world champion, Sigrid van Rijswijk of the Netherlands, leads aufguss rituals with Job Verheijen.
• Aufguss World Cup Freestyle final, Feb. 23 to 27, 2027, Czeladź, Poland. Defending champions Takada and Chomka face a field that includes Zatočil, Švandová, Kloß and Joli Irvine.

The SaunaNews aufguss calendar lists national championships and finals as their dates are announced.