A singing victory? Nothing is certain, but the Ukrainians, favourites for the competition, should benefit from a large solidarity vote in the Eurovision final on Saturday night in Turin.
The public gave Ukraine 439 points, for a total of 631 points including the jury vote, well ahead of the UK with 466 points and Spain with 459 points. This is the third victory for Ukraine, after 2004 and 2016.
With Sam Ryder performing Space Man, the UK was well placed to win. His performance was the last in the running order. It was a memorable performance.
When the results came in, the British singer was immediately in the top three, with the professional juries from each country revealing the points awarded to each participant in turn. The UK was the first country to break the 100-point barrier. France awarded this competitor first place with 12 points, ahead of Ukraine with 10 points.
France did not disappoint the statistics and finished second to last, ahead of Germany, with only 17 points: eight awarded by the public, seven by the Armenian professional jury, one by the Georgian professional jury and one by the Azerbaijani professional jury.
