International Youth Day - Eurovision's youngest contestants

Today, the world celebrates International Youth Day. To mark the occasion, we've pulled out the history books and have a look at some of the youngest contestants ever to grace the Eurovision stage.

All the youngest artists competed before 1990 as the age rule was introduced from that point.

The rule denoted that contestants must be 16 years old on the day of the contest.

This change, which in part led to the creation of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2003, was due to the controversy created by the entrance of the two youngest performers in the previous year, Nathalie Pâque and Gili Natanael.

Nathalie Pâque was 11 years old and Gili Natanael was 12 years old when they performed on the Eurovision stage for their respective nations France (though Nathalie was from Belgium) and Israel.

The selection of such young performers caused quite a controversy, due to the amount of pressure they were placed under, being children.

The selection of such young entrants, particularly with France as they chose Nathalie internally, was perhaps inspired by the success three years prior by the Belgian delegation.

They won the 1986 contest with 13-year-old Sandra Kim and her entry J'aime la vie.

Sandra remains the youngest ever Eurovision winner, and unless the current age restriction is changed, will continue to remain the youngest, despite lying about her age (she claimed she was 15-years-old) in her winning song.

Although not official contestants a number of children also performed as back-up singers before the rule change.

In 1979 Betty Missigeo sang Su Cancion (Your Song) for Spain, finishing runner-up.

Betty was joined by four children on stage through the performance that included 157 "lahs".

In 1985 the Danish duo Hot Eyes were joined by singer Søren Bundgaard's 9-year-old daughter Lea when performing Sku' du spørg' fra no'en? (What business is it of yours?). They finished 11th on the night.

Following the rule change, the youngest artists have been 16-years-old.

This includes ZENA, who performed Like It in 2019 for Belarus and Victor Vernicos who competed in 2023 with What They Say.

Eurovision's youngest artists now compete in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. Those performers must be between 9 and 14 years old.

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