Finland: Aksel Kankaanranta wins UMK 2020 with "Looking Back"

Last year, Finland looked away. This year they are Looking Back.

Tonight the Finnish national selection, Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK), took place live from Tampere with six artists competing. The result was determined by an international jury as well as the televote result.

Aksel Kankaanranta will represent Finland at Eurovision Song Contest 2020 with the song Looking Back after winning UMK 2020 tonight. He won the Jury's while the favourite Erika Vikman and "Cicciolina" won the televotes.

Aksel Kankaanranta's song Looking Back is written by Joonas Angeria and Connor McDonough.

Aksel Kankaanranta

Aksel comes from Turku, Finland and took part in The Voice of Finland in 2017. His song Looking Back is described by UMK as a "sensitive song telling about world-weariness, love and the feeling of inadequancy". In his free-time, he likes listening to vinyl records and spending time with his dog.

Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2020

This year's UMK took place on 7 March 2020 at Mediapolis in Tampere, where six acts competed.

After two years of finding the songs for the internally selected artists Saara Alto and Darude, UMK went back to its original format where Finnish acts could submit their songs to the show. The six competing artists were then announced during a press event in January 2020, and shortly after the six songs were released.

The winner was selected by a 50/50 combination of international jury/public votes.

Krista Siegfrieds, Finland's Eurovision representative in 2013, hosted the contest for the fifth time, and Ville "Viki" Eerikkilä and Juuso "Köpi" Kallio hosted the Green Room.

Finland in Eurovision Song Contest

Finland debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1961 and has participated ever since, except for six years, mostly because of previous years' bad position.

The country has won the competition once, in 2006 with the song "Hard Rock Hallelujah", performed by Lordi.

Since then Finland's best result is 11th place in 2014.

Since the introductions of semi-finals in 2004, Finland has qualified for the Grand Final half of the 16 times.