The iceman cometh (back)

M-15 to make a return to competitive curling

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International sports commentators are quaking in their expensive Italian shoes.
      The unthinkable has happened, and their worst nightmares are about to materialise, as Markku Uusipaavalniemi - holder of a silver medal at the Torino Olympics and owner of one of the most unpronouncable names in sport - has announced he is making a comeback in competitive curling.
     
Uusipaavalniemi, known to his curling colleagues simply as M-15, was the skip of the Finnish quartet at the 2006 Winter Olympics.
      His steely gaze and steady hand helped the team make it all the way to the final, generating something approaching "curling-fever" on these shores and turning M-15 himself into an unlikely sex-symbol and a winning candidate in the 2007 general election.
      Now "M-15, MP" has announced he is to captain a team - CC Dominant Eye - in the Finnish league that begins in November.
      The winner of the league will go forward to represent Finland at the European Curling Championships in 2010.
     
Not long after Torino, Uusipaavalniemi quit competitive curling for the back benches of Parliament as a Centre Party MP, and Finnish curling has struggled ever since.
      At this year's World Championships, the team finished last and failed to qualify for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
      Uusipaavalniemi's long-term plans are to return Finnish curling to its rightful place on the world stage in Sochi in 2014.
      The comeback of the laconic ice-icon was first reported by the sports desk of the Finnish Broadcasting Company, YLE.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  There´s Something About Uusis (28.2.2006)
  Curling silver, and silver or better in ice hockey as Finland shut out Russia 4-0 (24.2.2006)

Links:
  Markku Uusipaavalniemi (Wikipedia)

Helsingin Sanomat