What a year!
Thanks to COVID-19 it took us two years but we finally got to enjoy another Eurovision Song Contest.
Rotterdam gave us one of the best contests to date with interesting results from the semi finals all the way to the intensifying announcement of the grand final televotes, which saw Italy with ‘Zitti E Buoni' by Måneskin taking the trophy.
Today we look at some of the interesting statistics and facts from this years contest.
Firstly we look at some general stats and facts with qualification, language and voting.
Qualification
Australia lost its 100% grand final qualifying record, which now makes Ukraine the only country to hold this record.
Cyprus qualified for the sixth time in a row, only behind Ukraine and Sweden
Georgia and Latvia non-qualifed for the fourth Contest in a row
Language
The Grand Final top 5 consists of four non-English songs, the last time this occurred was in 1996
First time a solo male singing English language hasn't made the Top 10 since 2002
Voting
Italy, France and Ukraine received televotes from every country, Finland got televotes from every country except Georgia.
4th time in five years of the new voting system that the jury winner hasn’t won the whole Contest
The two countries that were announced first as qualifiers in the semi finals are also the two countries that finished 10th in their respective semi - the televote winners of each semi were also announced last
For the first time four countries received zero points in the televote in the Grand Final
Italy
Now we look at our new Eurovision winners Italy and see what they have achieved in the 2021 contest:
Italy's third Eurovision win and first in 31 years.
Last Italian language song to win was when Italy won in 1990.
First band to win Eurovision in 15 years since Lordi in 2006
First winner to be born in 21st Century (Thomas Raggi, Måneskin’s guitarist)
Only 2nd big 5 victory in 21st century
We run through a interesting stat and or fact from each competing country at Eurovision 2021:
Albania
Albania qualified for the Grand Final for the third time in a row, this is the first time they have done that for 11 years.
Australia
First time a country has competed at Eurovision without being on the Eurovision stage and also this year our first non-qualifier entry.
Austria
Competed with the fifth English language song in a row, and also failed to qualify for two times in a row
Azerbaijan
Placed in the top 20 for the 11th time in a grand final, the only time they were placed out of the top 20 in a Grand Final was in 2014 with 'Start a Fire' by Dilara Kazimova.
Belgium
Qualified for the first time since 2017.
Bulgaria
After achieving only 1 out of 9 qualifications from 2006-2013, Bulgaria achieved their 4th qualification in a row this year.
Croatia
Croatia missed out on qualifying, despite being in the top 10 in both the semi-final jury and televote.
Cyprus
Cyprus qualified for the grand final six times in a row, their longest run since the semi-finals were introduced and the third longest streak behind Ukraine and Sweden.
Czech Republic
Failed to qualify for the Grand Final for the sixth time overall.
Denmark
'Øve os på hinanden' is the first Danish language entry to miss the Grand Final after competing on the Eurovision stage in Semi-Final 2.
Estonia
Estonia missed out on the Grand Final for the 10th time overall.
Finland
Equaled their second best ever result. They also finished in 6th place in 1973. The only act who has done better was Lordi in 2006 with their Eurovision winning song 'Hard Rock Hallelujah'.
France
Best result since 1991 when they were runner-ups. They were also runner ups in 1990, 31 years ago, when Italy won, repeating history.
Georgia
Their fourth non-qualifying entry in a row and sixth overall.
Germany
The second contest in a row that Germany have scored 0 points in the televote.
Greece
Made the top 10 for the first time since 2013 when 'Alcohol Is Free' finished 6th at Eurovision 2013.
Iceland
Australia was one of three nations (also Finland and Denmark) to give 12 televotes to Iceland in the Grand Final. Also their best result since Yohanna finished runner-up in 2009 with 'Is it True?'.
Ireland
Ireland finished last in their semi-final for the second contest in a row.
Israel
Eden Alene broke Croatia's 25-year record for the highest note sung in Eurovision history in B6 whistle note. Previous held by Maja Blagdan with the song 'Sveta ljubav'. Maja managed to hit the B flat 5 note.
Latvia
This year marks the fifth time Latvia has come last place in a semi-final since 2009 (in the past 12 contests).
Lithuania
The Roop got Lithuania their third top 10 result ever in a Grand Final.
Malta
Australia gave Malta more televotes than any other country this year (8 points). Also 7th was their best result since Chiara finished 2nd in 2005 with 'Angel'.
Moldova
Moldova finished on the left-hand side of the scoreboard for the 6th time in 9 years (and in 3 of the last 4 years).
The Netherlands
Australia and Austria gave the Netherlands their highest jury vote total this year (3 points each). It was the lowest result (23rd) the country has finished since Trijntje Oosterhuis non-qualified in 2015.
North Macedonia
North Macedonia got their eleventh overall non-qualifying entry and their 7th in the last 8 Contests.
Norway
Norway qualified for the Grand Final for the fourth time in a row and for the 7th time in the last 8 Contetss.
Poland
Poland missed the Grand Final for the third year in a row.
Portugal
Portugal had its second best result since 1998, and sung in English language for the first time.
Romania
After a 100% qualifying record going into 2018, Romania now have their third non qualifier in a row ever.
Russia
14th grand final entry in the top 10 out of their 23 appearances. Their 7th in a row when they've made the Grand Final (they NQd in 2018).
San Marino
They qualified for the Grand Final for the third time ever out of 11 entries at Eurovision and received their first set of 12 points.
Serbia
They qualified for the third time in a row, the last time they did that was in 2012.
Slovenia
11th time Slovenia didn't make it to the Grand Final since the introduction of the semi-finals.
Spain
Over the last decade Spain has missed out on the Top 20 eight times. It is also the sixth time in a row the Spanish have failed to make the Top 20.
Sweden
Sweden's equal worth result since their 2010 non-qualification. Tusse finished in 14th place, the same result of Robin Stjernberg in 2013 with 'You'.
Switzerland
Their best result since 1993 when they also finished 3rd and two years running they have made the Top 5 (after non-qualifying four times running).
Ukraine
Best result in the televote since Jamala, who also finished second place with the public in 2016, and the first Ukrainian language entry.
United Kingdom
First country to receive 0 points from televote and jury in the new voting system. The fifth time the UK has finish at the bottom of the table in the last 15 Contests.
Check out the Aussievision podcast 'Eurovision 2021 - The Wash Up'. We go through Eurovision 2021 in detail including the show, what the top results told us, voting patterns, who did well, who didn't and how Australia went.
Listen via:
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Or wherever you listen to your podcasts!