2005

VENUE

Sports Palace, Kiev

ENTRIES

HOSTS

Maria Efrosinina

Pavlo Shylko

DEBUTS

Moldova

The organisers persevered with the semi-final, now just two days before the grand final. Some big favourites came to grief in the semi, including the hotly tipped Whitney-Houston-esque Dutch song, the Icelandic entry sung by 1999 runner up Selma and the much hyped Belarus entry which had been parachuted in at the eleventh hour to replace the original chosen entry by uber-diva singer Angelica Agurbash. Despite some fears about their ability to stage the event, the Ukraine delivered a fine contest. Memorably the public voting window was announced by the boxing Klitschko brothers.

This year saw an absolute glut of "ethnic" (ie. Turkish/Shakira) sounding songs. The "whiff of the souk" (copyright Terry Wogan 1980-2008) was everywhere. In the end only the Greek variation did well. After a slow start in the voting, when maximum points were being sprayed all over the place, in the space of what seemed like just a few countries votes, Greece stormed into a clear lead that was finally decisive.

One interesting facet of this contest was the return of the ballad. Conventional wisdom was that ballads would suffer with total public voting, but in 2005 Malta, Israel and Latvia put forward compelling ballads that took three of the top five places. At the other end of the scoreboard, the big four (UK, Germany, France and Spain, who get automatic entry each year in return for bankrolling much of the expense) occupied the bottom four places on the scoreboard. The next few years would show that this was no statistical blip.

Hungary Forogj világ NOX 12

United Kingdom Touch My Fire Javine 22

Malta Angel Chiara 2

Romania Let Me Try Luminita Anghel & Sistem 3

Norway In My Dreams Wig Wam 9

Turkey Rimi Rimi Ley Gülseren 13

Moldova Bunica Bate Toba Zdob Si Zdub 6

Albania Tomorrow I Go Ledina Celo 16

Cyprus Ela Ela Constantinos 18

Spain Brujería Son De Sol 21

Israel Hasheket Shenish'ar Shiri Maymon 4

Serbia & Montenegro Zauvijek Moja No Name 7

Denmark Talking To You Jacob Sveistrup 10

Sweden Las Vegas Martin Stenmarck 19

FYR Macedonia Make My Day Martin Vicic 17

Ukraine Razom Nas Bahato Greenjolly 20

Germany Run And Hide Gracia 24

Croatia Vukovi Umiru Sami Boris Novkovic & Lado 11

Greece My Number One Helena Paparizou 1

Russia Nobody Hurt No-One Natalia Podoskaya 15

Bosnia & Herzegovina Call Me Feminnem 14

Switzerland Cool Vibes Vanilla Ninja 8

Latvia The War Is Not Over Valters & Kaza 5

France Chacun Pense A Soi Ortal 23

Eliminated "Semi-Finalists" (In Draw Order)

Austria	Y Asi	Global Kryner
Lithuania	Little By Little	Laura & The Lovers
Portugal	Amare	2B
Monaco	Tout De Moi	Lise Darly
Belarus	Love Me Tonight	Angelica Agurbash
Netherlands	My Impossible Dream	Glennis Grace
Iceland	If I Had Your Love	Selma
Belgium	Le Grand Soir	Nuno Resende
Estonia	Let's Get Loud	Suntribe
Finland	Why	Geir Ronning
Andorra	La Mirada Interior	Marian van de Wal
Bulgaria	Lorrain	Kaffe
Ireland	Love	Donna & Joe
Slovenia	Stop	Omar Naber
Poland	Czarna Dziewczyna	Ivan & Delfin

WINNER:

Greece

MY NUMBER ONE

Elena Paparizou

Voting

IN THE NEWS THIS WEEK:

British MP George Galloway appears before a US senate committee to answer charges of profiteering from the oil-for-food process in Iraq.