There's Something About Uusis

By Virpi Salmi
     
      Does this make any sense whatsoever? I mean, the fact that the captain or "skip" of the Finnish curling team in Torino, Markku Uusipaavalniemi, became a huge hero in Finland and a new kind of sex symbol?
      "Uusis"* is a totally ordinary-looking Finnish man, in that rather bland, colourless fashion, and the sport he represents could not - even with the best will in the world - be described as the hottest discipline around.
     
But maybe ordinariness is what is sexy. Finnish women are a sensible, down-to-earth bunch, who are not in the habit of running around like headless chickens after movie stars, sporting heroes, or expensively-coiffured metrosexual types.
      For a good many, in fact for the majority, their choice of partner has fallen on the sort of homegrown Uusipaavalniemi-like bespectacled man who doesn't dye his hair or switch the frames on his glasses with the changing seasons.
      The popularity of Uusis also indicates that the stock of the ordinary Finnish man is rising nicely. Matti Vanhanen, too, has ranked astonishingly high in "Finland's Sexiest man" polls.
     
We women have in fact been suffering from a screaming shortage of sporting heroes like Uusis - it is just nobody has been able to diagnose the problem aright.
      Sportsmen have hitherto been altogether too brutal to be objects of desire for the educated Finnish female.
      They are sweaty, tracksuited neanderthals, who attempt to compensate for their missing teeth by acquiring an equivalent number of expensive sports cars. They have not read above one volume in their lives, either a coach's autobiography or a joint-the-dots book, and their mathematical skills can be roughly determined from the typical expression: "We're going to go flat out in the game, 110 percent", or Matti Nykänen's immortal "The chances are fifty-sixty".
      Sportsmen are also unreliable types. Failures come when the wind is blowing from the wrong direction, when they're running a cold, when their ski breaks, or when the pasta is the wrong brand.
     
But now we have Uusis! Here is a true sporting icon in straight black trousers, his hair neatly cut and combed, those understated, stylish glasses without a trace of condensation on the lenses - even at the moment of defeat.
      A 39-year-old father of three, who does not seem - if one is to believe the numerous fansites that have sprung up about him in the last week - to have a single human failing, but is blessed only with the strengths of the graduate engineer.
      Could anyone be a better model for the 21st Century Finnish sports star than a man who can reel off Pi to 250 decimal places or solve Rubik's cube in less than a minute?
      These are the kind of gifts that Nokia-Finland appreciates.
     
Uusis is in actual fact a superhero bearing the modest mortal likeness of an everyday Finnish man. He can do anything: he has, after all, turned the weird sport of curling into a smash hit in this land of cross-country skiers.
      And he has prompted one female reader of the business newspaper Arvopaperi, quoted on the paper's online forums, to wax lyrical in this vein: "Markku Uusipaavalniemi is the most erotic sight in the world as he slides firmly, silently, and with a grave expression along the sleek, glistening, smooth ice surface, holding that rock in his hand."
      Uusis would also be suited to be a sporting hero for males, as he is strong, upstanding and unshakable: the right stuff. His hardiness and resolution is cut from the same cloth as that which survived on a few pieces of dry crispbread in temperatures down to -40°C, and at the same time managed to preserve the nation's independence.
      As someone writes on one of the Uusipaavalniemi sites [which bear a passing resemblance to those inspired by action star Chuck Norris]: Uusis has been obliged to apply for a firearms licence for his steely gaze, Uusis has counted to infinity in his head. Twice., Markku Uusipaavalniemi + 1 = M-16, or Uusis that is without sin, let him cast the first stone.
      This is clearly not a man to be messed with.
     
When he plays, he dedicates himself to the sport with the sort of intensity, you just know that if he puts half as much into his performances in other spheres, then, well, you get my drift...
      If one has to say anything negative about Uusis's showing in Torino, then it must be admitted that the Finnish curling team's playing outfits were pretty damn ugly.
      But then again, that was hardly Uusis's fault.
      Uusis has such good taste that if he had had any say in the matter, he would never have chosen that tacky huge lion design on the back of the jackets.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 26.2.2006
     
*His name generated such difficulty among fellow players from other countries that, according to legend, the captain of the U.S. team at an earlier tournament started to refer to Markku Uusipaavalniemi as "M-15", after the fifteen letters of his surname. This and "Uusis" have become common nicknames among the Finns, too. And lest anyone take this too seriously, Markku Uusipaavalniemi was but one (admittedly very important) member of a four-man curling team that also included Teemu Salo (Lead), Kalle Kiiskinen (Second), and Wille Mäkelä (Third). They captured the nation's imagination and brought back a surprise silver medal.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Curling silver, and silver or better in ice hockey as Finland shut out Russia 4-0 (24.2.2006)
  Finns march on in ice hockey and curling (23.2.2006)

Links:
  Uusis - You Are Mighty (turn up your speakers!)
  The Man (yes, he has a Wikipedia entry)