Facts from this year’s Grand Final participants!

Here’s a few facts about this year’s Grand Final participants!

• Slovenia: never opened a ESC final
• France: Lisa Angell has covered the winning French entry from 1977 ‘L’oiseau et l’enfant’ with the Portuguese singer Tony Carreira
• Israel: first time an Israeli song has been performed entirely in English
• Estonia: performed 4^th in the final in 2000 and came 4^th in the contest overall
• United Kingdom: Last time UK performed 5^th in the final was in 1986 with Ryder ‘Runner in the night’ and came 7^th with 72 points
• Armenia: First time a singer of Japanese origin has performed in Eurovision
• Lithuania: Last time they sent a duet to ESC was in 2004 with Linas and Simona with ‘What happened to your love’
• Serbia: First time a Serbian entry has ever been sung entirely in English
• Norway: Last sent a duet in 1994 with Elisabeth Andressen and Jan Werner Danielson with ‘Duett’ and came 6^th with 76 points
• Sweden: Måns Zelmerlöw has attempted to represent Sweden 4 times through Melodifestivalen, and has hosted the junior version of the show Lilla Melodifestivalen in 2007
• Cyprus: John Karayiannis previously tried to represent Cyprus at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2007 and 2008
• Australia: Their interest in ESC was sparked through video clips in 2013 and then second semi-final interval act in 2014.
• Belgium: Have sent an entry in English every year since 2009.
• Austria: When Austria have sent a group to Eurovision since the introduction of the semi-finals (2005 with Global Kryner and 2012 with Trackshittaz) they never qualified for the final.
• Greece – The Greek singer this year Maria-Elena Kyriakou was born in Cyprus.
• Montenegro – Knez has brought Montenegro for the first time into the final for a second year in a row.
• Germany – For the second year in a row the wildcard winner of the German selection has gone on to represent them on the Eurovision stage.
• Poland – Are back in the final for the second year in a row, this is a feat that they have not achieved since the semi finals were introduced.
• Latvia – This year is the first time since the 2008 contest that Latvia has qualified for the final.
• Romania – This is the first that Romania has sung at the Eurovision Song Contest in Romanian since 2008.
• Spain – Spain has never not included Spanish in their Eurovision lyrics, Edurne will be performing in 100% Spanish tonight.
• Hungary – Hungary returned to the contest in 2011 with the female solo artist, Kati Wolf.
• Georgia – The last time that Georgia sent a solo artist to the contest, they finished in 9^th place their best result in the contest to date.
• Azerbaijan – Represented by Elnur who represented Azerbaijan on their debut in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2008.
• Russia – This is the fourth year in a row that Russia has been represented by a female singer or singers.
• Albania – Back in the final for the first time since 2012, this is the latest in the running order that they have performed.
• Italy – This is the first time that Italy has sent a three person group to the contest.

Happy Eurovision everyone!