For FYR Macedonia, Elena Risteska sounds like Javine. She even looks like Javine. But she’ll get a better result.
The comparison is with Javine Hylton’s “Touch My Fire”, which finished 22nd for the United Kingdom in the 2005 final. Elena’s “Ninanajna”, written by Darko Dimitrov and Rade Vrčakovski, had rather more going for it. She won Macedonia’s televised national selection on 4 March, taking 6,999 public votes from a field of 20 songs.
On merit, that makes this one a definite qualifier.
And the prediction was right. Performing 11th in the 18 May 2006 semi-final in Athens, Elena scored 76 points and finished 10th of 23 entries, qualifying for the final. Two nights later, she performed 11th again and finished 12th with 56 points — at the time, Macedonia’s best Eurovision placing. That record was later surpassed by Tamara Todevska’s seventh place in 2019.
