OREANDA-NEWS. Two competitors in the Ski Classics series of cross-country skiing competitions may lose their fingers due to frostbite. During the race, the temperature reached minus 28 degrees. After the competition, many athletes turned to doctors for help due to frostbite, including the silver medalist of the marathon, the Norwegian Andreas Nygaard, but most of all «got» the Swede Michael Eklof and the German Patrick Ottilinger. They can have their fingers amputated.

According to Eklof, in his case, we are talking about the big toe. The injury is very serious, the doctors say. He stressed, that they don't know, whether it will be possible to save the finger or it will simply rot from the inside. Eklof admitted, that he was in terrible pain, and he could not put on his shoes at all. In addition, the skier works as a salesman and now can't go to work.

Ottilinger told, that he couldn't feel two fingers on the hand, and one of them was «terrible colors». The German athlete added, that he finished the marathon around the middle of the distance, because he just froze and almost couldn't see anything, reports Sports.ru. Ottilinger noticed the seriousness of what had happened only when he touched one hand to the other. Then he felt, that it was just stone, like a boulder. The hand was also completely white.