Phew... she's through

Confidence and experience carried Chiara through the semi-final last night, securing Malta with a place in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest after an absence of two years.

Alone on stage, except for a microphone, Chiara filled the stage with her presence and powerful voice, and albeit a nervous start she wooed international viewers with her rendition of What If We.

The Maltese must have heaved a collective sigh of relief when Chiara's name was the fifth to be called out among the 10 qualifiers from the 18 competing songs.

She qualified for the final after three consecutive Eurovision dismal rankings. For months, the island had pinned its hopes on the 32-year-old whose past rankings nearly brought the coveted trophy home.

From the outset her goal and that of PBS, who were entrusted with the organisation, was to qualify. Now, Chiara will want to go for the jugular and win, but the competition is stiff. Despite this, the presence of the jury, which has a 50-per cent stake in the vote in Saturday's final, could still spring some surprises.

But Chiara will worry about all this when she gets to it.

Last night she was enjoying the moment and the twinkle in her eye competed with the sparkle of the 1,500 Swarovski crystals that studded her black dress, designed by Charles and Ron.

"I can't feel any better," she told The Times in her first reaction, as she prepared for the joint press conference with the qualifying countries last night.

"I feel proud to be Maltese and I feel I did a great thing to put Malta in the Eurovision's final - I'm thrilled," she enthused.

The reaction to her performance was good overall, and the website oikotimes.com described her rendition as a "stunning vocal performance".

The show started off with a fairytale of two young girls who go on to discover a song that gives people wings. The postcards were also imaginative, capturing each country's landmarks in three-dimensional graphics. Before she went on stage Chiara looked at her Pandora bracelet, adorned with lucky charms from her closest friends, for comfort. She fought hard to keep her mind occupied on the banter backstage.

"During the first dress rehearsal I was left alone for five minutes and my performance didn't come out the way I wanted. The second time I stayed joking and it came out well," she said.

For the past week, things were looking good for Malta and from the outset bookmakers predicted Chiara had a strong entry to surpass the first hurdle. The preliminary results of The Big Poll, released by esctoday.com yesterday, also showed that the countries that gained most points since the rehearsals were Belgium, Bosnia Herzegovina, FYR Macedonia and Malta - just Bosniza Herzegovina and Malta actually went on to qualify last night.

Another poll, the Europrediction 2009, which had 46,000 valid votes and was conducted by oikotimes.com, also predicted Malta would sail through the semi-final.

The qualifying countries were announced by the show's presenters Natalia Vodyanova and Andrey Malakhov who turned up on stage of the Olympiysky Arena waving 10 envelopes on stage.

Silence preceded each announcement followed by the euphoria of the country that qualified. The 10 finalists that qualified, in the order they were announced, are: Turkey, Sweden, Israel, Portugal, Malta, Finland, Bosnia Herzegovina, Romania, Armenia, and Iceland.

Nine countries were chosen through televoting in the 18 countries, while the 10th spot, the wild card, went to the song that placed the highest in the juries' voting, but did not qualify through televoting.

The scoreboard featuring the final results of the two semi-finals will not be revealed until after Saturday's final so as not to prejudice the public vote on the night.