VENUE Skonto Hall, Riga		ENTRIES 25
HOSTS Marie Naumova Renars Kaupers		DEBUTS Ukraine

Another Baltic-staged contest and another country winning the contest for the very first time. After waiting twelve years for a country to achieve a debut win (after ex-Yugoslavia in 1989) 2003 saw a third new winner. This sequence of events had occurred twice before (1956/57/58, predictably, with Switzerland, Netherlands & France,  and 1966/67/68 with Austria, UK, & Spain).  Little did we know at the time that all records were about to be broken, as the next FIVE contests would also produce first-time winners.   

It was also an extremely close contest at the business end. Only three points separated the top three songs. The only other time in ESC history that this happened was the four way tie in 1969 and it was quite remarkable for it to happen with the current scoring system. The Baltic stranglehold was well and truly broken, Estonia had their worst result since their debut and the hosts Latvia finished second-bottom after being one of the pre-contest favourites. The United Kingdom brought off a spectacular "nul points" that was a God-send for this website.

Many other old assumptions were knocked  for six, too, as songs from very early draws and non-English songs did very well. There was some controversy when the Irish televote result arrived too late to be officially verified and the backup jury vote was used instead. After such a very tight finish the Russian TV company campaigned for the release of the Irish televotes (the jury awarded no points to Russia, nor Turkey for that matter!).         

WINNER: Turkey

EVERY WAY THAT I CAN by Sertab Erener

Voting

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