The song was about ‘One Life’, but in the end it was one point which mattered: Malta’s Glen failed to make it to last night’s Eurovision final for just a single point.
Malta’s entry song One Life, placed eleventh with 54 points, just a point less than Switzerland’s 55 points. As only the first 10 out of the 19 countries taking part in the first semi-final made it to last night’s final, Glen missed celebrating his birthday on stage last night by a whisker. He can at least take comfort in the fact that Malta received more votes than Poland and Turkey both popular bookmakers’ favourites.
Anton Attard, Public Broadcasting Services CEO and head of the Maltese delegation, told timesofmalta.com: “Glen worked very hard and this result shows that he really deserved to be in the final.” He added that PBS will keep on improving the standards of the national Eurovision festival so as to make it a strong platform for Maltese artists. Glen is expected back in Malta this afternoon.
In yesterday’s final Azerbaijan clinched the winning trophy of the 56th Eurovision song contest. Singers Ell and Nikki, with their song ‘Running Scared’ garnered 221 points by the end of a voting process which saw 43 countries taking part.
Italy’s Raphael Gualazzi was the runner up with 189 points and Sweden's Eric Saade placed third with 185 points. Malta gave its maximum 12 points to Azerbaijan. The Maltese audience was already familiar with the song as the duo had featured on Xarabank a few days before the start of the contest.
Malta handed out the votes as follows: Italy (10), Ireland (8), UK (7), Sweden (6), Denmark (5), Ukraine (4), Slovenia (3), Austria (2) and France (1). The votes were read out, in live broadcast with the backdrop of the Valletta waterfront, by model and aspiring singer Kelly Schembri.
With the semi-finals scoreboard out last night on eurovision.tv, it was obvious that Glen’s promotional tour had an impact on the voting patterns. Glen had visited Croatia, Armenia and Georgia on his promotional tour, while singers representing San Marino, Croatia and Azerbaijan came to Malta on theirs.
In fact on the semi-final night, Malta got the maximum 12 votes from San Marino. The other countries which voted for Malta were: Armenia (7), Azerbaijan (7), Albania (6), Georgia (6), Serbia (5), Croatia (4), Hungary (2), Norway (2), Turkey (2) and Lithuania (1). In turn, on the semi-final night Malta voted for Croatia (12), Azerbaijan (10), Georgia (8), Armenia (7), San Marino (6), Greece (5), Serbia (3), Norway (4), Turkey (2) and Hungary (1).
Last year Malta was represented by Thea Garreth who also failed to qualify for the final, placing twelfth in the semi-finals.