As part of our coverage of the 2013 Eurovision Young Dancers contest we are looking back at the history of the contest. So far we have seen the contest from 1985 through until 1995 and today we will be moving onto the 1997, 1999 and 2001 contest. You can get links to the rest of the series so far at the bottom of the article.
In 1997 the contest made it’s way to Eastern Europe for the first time as the Polish broadcaster, TVP hosted the contest at the Teatr Muzyczny in Gydnia. The final was held on the 17th of June. This year saw the smallest contest since the contest launch in 1985 as just 13 countries look part. Latvia and Slovakia debuted at the contest, however withdrawing from the contest were; Austria, France, Norway and Switzerland.
As in previous years a semi final was held 6 days before the final. The countries that did not qualify for the final were:
- Cyprus
- Estonia
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Slovenia
Interestingly the jury that chose the winner of the contest had reduced in size once again, and consisted of just 7 people. The top.3 were:
- Spain – Antonio Carmena San José
- Belgium – Alain Honorez
- Sweden – Tim Matiakis
The countries that were in the final but did not get ranked were:
- Finland
- Latvia
- Poland
- Slovakia
So as the 1997 contest ended, we waited another two years until the next contest in 1999.
The 1999 contest was Eurovision Young Dancers return back to France, but instead of Paris France 3 took us to Lyon and the Opéra de Lyon. The final of the contest took place on the 10th of July. The 1999 contest saw a number of countries return, as well as a debut from the Czech Republic. The countries returning were:
- France
- Netherlands
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
However withdrawing from the contest were:
- Russia
- Slovakia
The semi final took 6 days before the final, the countries that were left behind in the semi final were:
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Hungary
- Slovenia
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
Again a jury of 7 like in 1997 selected the winner of the contest. The results were as follows:
- Germany – Katja Wünsche & Stegli Yohan
- Sweden – Nathalie Nordquist
- Spain – Clara Blanco
As the contest moved into the 21st century the contest went to the United Kingdom with the event being held at the Linbury Studio Theatre in London on June 24th. The 2001 contest saw a joint record 17 countries take part in the contest. The following country changes took place:
Debuting:
- Ireland
Returning:
- Austria
- Estonia
- Norway
Withdrawing:
- France
- Hungary
- Spain
In a change to the contest in 1999, the semi final was held the night before the final on the 23rd of June. The countries left behind were:
- Austria
- Cyprus
- Greece
- Ireland
- Norway
So the results after the jury vote were:
- Poland – Dawid Kupinski & Marcin Kupinski
- Belgium – Jeroen Verbruggen
- Netherlands – Maartje Hermans & Golan Yosef
The countries that were not ranked were:
- Czech Republic
- Estonia
- Finland
- Germany
- Latvia
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- United Kingdom
So that’s it for today, we will be back tomorrow with our final look at the history of Eurovision Young Dancers as we take a look at the 2003, 2005 and 2011 contests.
The links to the previous history articles are below:
