Young women wearing facemasks and traditional costumes of Song dynasty and Tang dynasty are seated on a bench in a park next to the East Lake in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province on May 17, 2020. The Guardian picture desk has chosen on December 17, 2020, the AFP photojournalist Hector Retamal as “Agency Photographer of the Year 2020” for his coverage of the novel coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China. (Photo by Hector Retamal/AFP Photo)

Believers bathe in the icy water during a traditional Epiphany at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Ostankino near TV Tower in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, January 18, 2023. Across Russia, the devout and the daring are observing the Orthodox Christian feast day of Epiphany by immersing themselves in frigid water through holes cut through the ice of lakes and rivers. Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Jesus Christ as the incarnation of God through his baptism in the River Jordan. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

Every year, in the Rostov region of Russia, a group of 40 young and not so young rural workers compete in the Bison Track Show, or more affectionately known as: Russian Flying Tractor Racing. In front of crowds numbering up to 30,000 people, a series of smoke spilling, monstrous farming machines tear round an 8km mud track, plowing through lakes and dirt mounds, their turbos screaming and tyres scrabbling to find grip.

Sydney Truba, 11, of Melvindale, Michigan lies in a giant lake of mud during Wayne County's 2011 Mud Day event at Nankin Mills Park July 12, 2011 in Westland, Michigan. The annual event consists of 20,000 gallons of water mixed with 200 tons of topsoil. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

A girl laughs while unloading her boat of produce at a market in Ganvie on January 6, 2012 in Cotonou, Benin. Often called the Venice of Africa, Ganvie is a stilted fishing village on Lake Nokoue, near Cotonou in Benin, the largest such village in Africa, and home to approximately 20,000 residents. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

A model poses during the annual World Bodypainting Festival in Poertschach, Austria, July 3, 2015. The event takes place from July 3 to 5 at lake Woerthersee in Austria's southern Carinthia province. (Photo by Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters)

After some days with temperatures below freezing point, I was out skating at some lakes at the outskirts of Oslo in Norway. After a while I noticed something on the ice. To my astonishment it was a dead frozen frog.

This brave swimmer certainly has a brrracing workout each weekend she skinny dips in one of the coldest rivers in Europe which regularly plummets to temperaturess of –9C. Inna Vladimirskaya, 32, strips off on the banks of the Dnieper river, in Kiev, Ukraine, every Sunday morning, and takes a swim after jogging along the snowy banks of the river in the nip. (Photo by David Tesinsky/Caters News Agency)