A nail-biting vote took the result of the 2018 contest down to the wire, but Israel was named the winner. Netta claimed a fourth Israeli victory with ‘Toy’.
The juries favoured Austria, and it wasn’t until the last vote was announced that the Israeli win became clear. With just two votes to go, it was between Israel and Eleni Foureia from Cyprus.
Reports from Lisbon suggested that this afternoon, the Cypriot and Israeli delegations were moved next to each other in the green room, perhaps anticipating a close finish, and making it easy to flip cameras between the two and catch genuine shock on the face of the winner. It has now emerged she won the first semi final. Cyprus came second and Austria fourth.
Netta received her award from last year’s winner, who didn’t hang around. A few days back Salvador Sobral described her song as ‘horrible’ and whined about how the contest hadn’t changed since his win. The new champion brushed him aside and gave a short speech:
“I’m so happy! Thank you so much for choosing different. Thank you so much for accepting differences between us. Thank you for celebrating diversity. Thank you! I love my country!”
Join us next week for more post-Eurovision analysis and a run down of the viewing numbers.
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