Duncan Laurence, singing for the Netherlands, has won the 64th Eurovision Song Contest. Italy finished in second place and Russia came third.
Norway won the televote with 291 points – the lowest yet for a televote winner. It all ended with the top four finishing in higher places than they did in both the jury and televote rankings.
Picking up his award at the end of an overrunning show, Laurence said: “Here’s to dreaming big, this is to music first, always.”
The United Kingdom ended the Eurovision decade much as they started it … in last place. Elsewhere, while San Marino and North Macedonia enjoyed their best-ever results, the Greeks finished with their worst-ever result in a final. All 12 of the Israeli televote points came from the Belarus composite vote after the EBU fired the official jury for revealing how they voted in the first semifinal.
The results of the two semifinal heats are now public. Australia won the first show, while the Dutch took first place on Thursday. Ireland scored the lowest number of points across the qualifiers; along with Armenia and Belarus, this represented their worst result ever.
Australia scored the second-worst result in the final for a country that won its semifinal.
Overall, songs from the first semifinal did badly compared with those from Thursday’s qualifiers. Australia, in ninth place, was the best of them. Seven of the songs from the second semifinal finished higher on Saturday.
[table id=565 /]Madonna caused upset when her backing dancers wore Israeli and Palestinian flags on the backs of their outfits. Organisers quickly issued a statement saying this was not a planned part of the event. Icelandic band Hatari later added to the controversy by showing a scarf bearing the Palestinian flag during the vote.
In a statement, Eurovision organisers said the “consequences of this action” will be discussed by the contest’s executive board.
