Sweden euphoric
Their fifth Eurovision win
Swedes were euphoric yesterday after singer Loreen clinched the country’s fifth Eurovision crown, beating rivals including a group of Russian grannies in the glitzy annual song contest.
Favourite Loreen wowed voters with her catchy techno-pop number Euphoria, crushing the competition as she notched up the maximum 12 points from judge after judge.
Hosts Azerbaijan put on a four-hour extravaganza that it hoped would bolster its image despite concerns over human rights violations under the autocratic rule of the Aliyev dynasty.
Loreen’s victory was the fifth for Sweden following in the footsteps of its most famous band Abba who won the contest in 1974 with Waterloo – for many the song that defined the kitschy contest for all time.
“It’s just a question of taste. This year it happened to me,” was how Loreen, whose real name is Lorine Zineb Noka Talhaoui, modestly explained her victory with 372 points.
“Loreen is a Swedish hero,” cheered one jubilant fan Steffan Janemyr as Swedes thronged into Stockholm’s central Sergel square. “It’s the best song ever to have won Eurovision.” Foreign Minister Carl Bildt tweeted: “Yes, Loreen certainly lived up to high expectations.”
Loreen ran into controversy in Azerbaijan by meeting local rights activists who briefed her on the lack of democratic freedoms in the tightly controlled ex-Soviet state.
However, at the post-contest news conference she sidestepped a question about how she would support the people of Azerbaijan further, saying simply: “I will support the Azerbaijan people from my heart.”
In Baku the festive atmosphere had been clouded by the detentions of dozens of opposition activists who attempted to hold peaceful demonstrations calling for democratic freedoms.
Azerbaijan is run by strongman President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his late father Heidar Aliyev in 2003. His wife Mehriban Aliyeva headed the Eurovision organising committee and his son-in-law, Emin Agalarov, a Moscow-based businessman with a budding pop career, sang in a black leather jacket in a musical interlude after the voting.
The show included the usual mix of the weird and exotic including a Norwegian rapper of Iranian origin who came last, half-naked French gymnasts and Irish duo Jedward who ended the routine by getting drenched by a fountain.
There was disappointment for Britain after veteran crooner Engelbert Humperdinck – brought in to revive its notoriously bad Eurovision fortunes – scored just 12 points and came second last with his ballad Love Will Set You Free.
Voting was marked by the usual backslapping geo-political patterns with the Greeks voting for the Cypriots and vice versa.
The final’s 26 acts lit up the Crystal Hall built on the Caspian Sea in barely six months, with an audience of some 20,000 inside the venue and 100 million television viewers.