Saturday saw 27 countries take part in the grand final, broadcast live from the Wiener Stadthalle in the Austrian capital.
To the obvious delight of the arena audience, the winning entry, “Heroes” (see video above), was performed by Måns Zelmerlöw. For weeks, “Heroes” has been widely tipped to triumph at the contest. He scored 365 points.
Russia reached second place; Italy third; Belgium fourth. Australia finished in fifth place. The host nation, Austria, received nul points (as did Germany).
This is Sweden’s sixth Eurovision Song Contest win and its second in just four years, Loreen having triumphed in 2012 with “Euphoria.” Previously, the country won in 1974, when Abba performed “Waterloo”, 1984 (Herreys with “Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley”), 1991 (Carola with “Fångad av en stormvind”), and 1999 (Charlotte Nilsson with “Take Me To Your Heaven.”
This year, in total, 40 countries entered the competition, 13 having been voted out during two semi-finals, which were broadcast live from Vienna on Tuesday, May 20, and Thursday, May 22, respectively.
Seven countries — last year’s winner, Austria (thanks to Conchita Wurst’s rousing anthem, “Rise Like A Phoenix”), the Big Five (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) and Australia, specially invited, by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), to take part for the 60th Eurovision Song Contest this year — already have guaranteed places in the final.
Out of the 16 countries that competed in the first semi-final on Tuesday, six were knocked out: Belarus, Denmark (last year’s hosts), Finland, FYR Macedonia, Moldova and the Netherlands. They were joined by a further seven countries on Thursday from the second semi-final: Czech Republic, Iceland, Ireland, Malta, Portugal, San Marino and Switzerland.
The whole 2015 shebang was staged by the Austrian state broadcaster Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF) and now the baton has been handed back to Swedish state television, Sveriges Television AB (SVT), to see if they can top their well-received efforts three years ago.
