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During the last weekend there was Finnish Senior World Championships Challenge games at Oulunkylä. Four teams skipped by Lauri Perkiö, Yrjö Franssila, Kari Sundell and Tauno Kähkönen were competing for the spot to represent Finland in Gävle. Playing format was a double round-robin. In advance favourites were Perkiö and Franssila witch both play in the mens first division.
On the first round both favorites holded out winning both Kähkönen and Sundell. Saturday mornings game between Perkiö and Franssila was thight, but Perkiö managed to win the game 8-7. Kähkönen also got his first win 10-8 over Sundell.
Second round-robin started the same way as the first when Franssila won Kähkönen 7-3 and Perkiö beat Sundell 13-3. The next round turned out to be decisive. Both Franssila (against Sundell) and Perkiö (against Kähkönen) were strugling at the beginning of the games but both teams managed to tie the games before last ends. Sundell was lying a point before Franssila's last stone and when the raise attempt failed Sundell had won the game 7-6. On the other game Mauno Nummila who playd skips stones for Perkiö played a good tap back with his last stone to lie one pretty well buried behind the guards. Kähkönen failed on his tap back wth his last stone so Perkiö won 5-4 and secured the spot to Gavle before the last game.
Perkiö repeated the last years win and represents Finland again in the Senior Worlds with his team mates Mauno Nummila, Antti Sundholm and Olli Kallio. On the womens side Finland is represented by Helena Timonen, Mimmi Koivula, Pirjo Hautanen, Irma Elfvengren and Kirsti Kauste.
-Olli Rissanen (translated by Aku Kauste)
