UPDATED - Kurt Calleja delighted the crowd with his performance in the Eurovision Song Contest tonight but Malta never challenged for the top positions, with the top honour eventually going to Sweden, which led the leaderboard almost as soon as the televoting votes started being declared.
Half way through the voting, Sweden already had a lead of 40 points while Russia, Serbia, Turkey and hosts Azerbaijan battled for the other top positions.
Sweden continued to stretch its lead to over 100 points, ending up with a total tally of 372 followed at some distance by Serbia and Russia.
Despite Calleja's brilliant performance, Malta placed in a disappointing and unexpected, 21st as most countries voted for their neighbours.
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[/video]Malta got its votes as follows: Ukraine (7) Belarus (3) Azerbaijan (8) San Marino (2) the UK (5), Turkey (2), F.R Macedonia (1), Lithuania (7), Serbia (6)
There were no votes for Malta from Albania, Montenegro, Romania, Austria, Belgium, France, Moldova, Greece, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Slovenia, Cyprus, Croatia, Slovakia, Portugal, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Denmark, Latvia, Spain, Finland, Georgia, Italy, Germany, Russia, Hungary, Israel and Ireland.
The top votes by Malta went to Turkey (eight points) Italy (10) and Azerbaijan (12).