If you’re the host broadcaster, the one thing you don’t want your participant to do is win. Just think about it. You’ve sweated for 12 months since you won the previous year. Funds have been diverted towards our favourite TV show. TV bigwigs have been spending sleepless night wondering how to make the event a success. And then you have to do it the following year.
One way to win, and yet not have to worry about the following year is to tie for the win. As we all know, it happened in 1969. The Madrid contest saw four winners, one of whom was today’s birthday girl Salomé (née Maria Rosa Marco Poquet). Under more modern systems, there would only be one winner. But because the EBU thought a tie could never ever possibly happen (ha ha ha), they had no rule on what to do when it did. So Spain is officially the first country to record back-to-back wins. That’s some legacy.
Salomé is 79 today.
Feliz cumpleaños, Salomé!