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Denmark wins Eurovision 2013

Denmark's Emmelie de Forest wins Eurovision with her song "Only Teardrops."

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2013-05-19_2242Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest has won the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 with her dynamic song Only Teardrops.

She won with 281 points.

Azerbaijan was second with 234 points followed by Ukraine (214 points), Norway (191 points), Russia (174 points), Greece (152 points) and Italy (126 points). In last place was Ireland on 5 points (robbed!).

De Forest was always the front-runner in the contest according to the bookies, who were bang on also tipping Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Norway.

“Of course there has been pressure, and it was stressful. But it also gave me energy that people supported me, that they liked Only Teardrops and that they voted for me,” said de Forest.

“When I saw the butterfly with the Danish flag, and then my team cheered and I first didn’t understand that I had won.”

Malmö turned on a fabulous show, with 26 performers and the inimitable host Petra Mede, who gave a shout-out to Australia with a “live cam” cross to a dozing ‘Aussie family’ glued to the box. She even sang a Broadway-style parody to Sweden.

While ABBA’s Benny and Bjorn co-wrote the theme “We Write the Story,” ABBA was a no-show. Dammit.

2011’s Eric Saade hosted the Green Room proceedings including dropping the night’s clanger “Back to you Petra, hashtag#MILF.”

During the lengthy voting proceedings Germany’s Lena incorrectly awarded 10 points to Norway instead of Denmark. It was instantly corrected. Doh.

United Kingdom’s sentimental entry Bonnie Tyler fell short by a country mile, scoring just 23 points. In fact most of “Big 5” nations who fund the event all hovered at the bottom: Germany (18 points), France (14 points), Spain (8 points). Expect major fallout.

Denmark was also voted the favourite by Australians on the SBS website, followed by Greece, Romania, Norway, and Azerbaijan.

Meanwhile winner Emmelie De Forest will now embark on a circuit of media engagements and appearances.

“I don’t have the exact schedule, I don’t know what will happen but I guess I will be pretty busy”, she explained.

“It’s wonderful, my brothers and sisters mean a lot to me. They gathered here in Sweden tonight and I’m sending them a lot of thoughts.”

Next year the Contest travels to Denmark, just across other side of the Øresund Bridge.

David Knox blogs Eurovision for SBS.

9 Responses

  1. I enjoyed the broadcast very much but I do think SBS should review the onscreen placement of calls to go to Facebook which aired over the performances. The tweets and social media pictures taking up a large part of the screen were also unwelcome. We’re certainly in the age where social media and TV are being used at the same time, but personally I’d rather keep them separate streams so I can enjoy both in their own environments, rather than having the TV broadcast taken over.

  2. Great three nights and the best song of the competition wins. I had a small hope Romania might come close haha.

    UK, Germany and Spain were nothing special, and after a fantastic entry last year by Spain, this one falls a bit flat.

    I’d put France above those three but not quite sure it was so low.

  4. Despite it being over 3 hours long – it was hugely entertaining.

    And although Sam and Julia being loads of fun, one must be envious that the UK have the hilarious Graham Morton doing the voice over.

    As for the ‘major fall out’ – couldn’t agree more. Spain especially would be mighty miffed since there was pressure not to send an act this year – due to their huge economic woes back home.

    As for the quality of the telecast – first class. And to think they spent 1/4 of what Baku did last year.

    Memo to Aria awards producers – this is how it’s done.

    Congrats to all involved – and if it wasn’t for the rubbish reality reno and weight loss shows – Eurovision could have given SBS a rare third place last night.

    And damn – didn’t we all wish that was Agnetha singing ‘Winner takes it all’ last night.

  5. David,I hate to admit this but I never came across your blog.I was expecting to find it on the sbs euro page,but just found the live chat..which was rocking(with all the chat and votes cast i think sbs will be pleased with the web traffic this generated..wonder if they’ll release numbers on this too).That ‘major fallout’ remark sounds ominous..would like to hear more from you at some time what you foresee might happen.Thx for the sf1 numbers on Saturday…hoping final comes in at..600 maybe?

  6. Good show by Sweden this year. Petra was great and the segments and the broadway performance were hilarious. Good to know Swedes have a sense of humour.

    I feel sorry for Ireland because it was actually one of my faves and was a good song. No way did it deserve last. Azerbaijan, Greece and Malta were my other picks.

    Also great to see the Aussie flag being waved front row. We got a mention and a big cheer. They seem to like us more than the UK. The UK can’t bitch cos they send terrible acts with terrible songs lately.

  7. Eric Saade did say those remarks but unless you were watching the live feed from the official website you’d not have seen it, as SBS had edited his segments out, something which was fairly understandable as he didn’t really offer anything to the proceedings. Though SBS also put the edits to “Linda Woodruff” which was a shame as her contributing segments were very amusing… She was an unfortunate omission from what has otherwise been a great coverage by SBS both on-air and online.

    I thought Petra Mede was an outstanding host throughout the three nights, and her interval act performance was great. SVT and the Swedes know how to stage Eurovision that’s for sure.

  8. It was a wonderful eurovision.
    I’ve long thought that only the countries who take part in the final should get to vote in the final.
    As long as viewing figures hold up I’m not sure the big 5 would be overly concerned about the lower placings. Bonnie Tyler did better than I expected her to actually. She’s great but a crap song.
    Till Denmark 2014..

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