Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest

Estonia
Member station	ERR
National selection events	National final Eurolaul ; 1993 (song) ; 1994 ; 1996–2008 ; Eesti Laul ; 2009–2021 ; Internal selection 1993 (artist) ;
Participation summary
Appearances	25 (16 finals)
First appearance	1994
Best result	1st: 2001
External links
	ERR page
	Estonia's page at Eurovision.tv
	For the most recent participation see; Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020

Estonia has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 25 times since making its debut in 1994. Its first appearance would have taken place in 1993, however a qualification round was installed for seven former Eastern bloc countries hoping to make their debut in the contest, with Estonia failing to qualify. Estonia has won the contest once, in 2001.

Estonia's first participation in 1994 was unsuccessful, finishing 24th (out of 25). Estonia went on to finish in the top eight in six out of seven contests (1996–2002), with Maarja-Liis Ilus and Ivo Linna fifth (1996), Maarja-Liis Ilus returning to finish eighth (1997), Evelin Samuel and Camille sixth (1999) and Ines fourth (2000), before Tanel Padar, Dave Benton & 2XL gave Estonia its first victory in 2001. This made Estonia the first former Soviet country to win the contest and the second eastern European country to win, after Yugoslavia in 1989. Sahlene then finished third for the hosts in Tallinn in 2002.

Since the introduction of the semi-final round in 2004, Estonia has failed to reach the final on nine occasions and has reached the top ten four times, with Urban Symphony sixth (2009), Ott Lepland sixth (2012), Elina Born and Stig Rästa seventh (2015) and Elina Nechayeva eighth (2018). Estonia's total of ten top ten results, is more than any other Baltic country.

History

Estonia finished 24th (out of 25) on its debut in 1994 and was relegated from the following years contest.

Estonia's record at the contest was a successful one from 1996 to 2002, only failing once to make the top 10 (in 1998 when it ended up in 12th place). Maarja-Liis Ilus and Ivo Linna's fifth-place in 1996 was the first top five ranking for a former Soviet country. Ilus returned to finish eighth in 1997.

The country's first win came in 2001, when Tanel Padar and Dave Benton, along with 2XL, sang "Everybody" and received 198 points, therefore making Estonia the first former USSR country to win the Contest and the second country of eastern Europe after Yugoslavia. The 2002 contest was held in Estonia, in the capital city Tallinn, where Sahlene finished third for the hosts (tied with the UK).

From 2004 to 2008 Estonia failed to qualify to the finals, mostly receiving poor results – during that period its best entry was 11th place in the 2004 semi-final by Neiokõsõ with the "Tii" (The Way), sung in the Võro language, a southern-Estonian dialect.

Despite news that Estonia might withdraw from the 2009 contest, set to be held in Moscow, Russia, due to the war in South Ossetia, Eesti Rahvusringhääling (ERR) confirmed that, due to public demand, Estonia would send an entry to Moscow.[1][2] After a new national final, Eesti Laul, was introduced to select the Estonian entry, the winner was Urban Symphony with "Rändajad" (Nomads[3] or Travellers), which had beaten the televoting favourite, Laura, by the votes of a jury.[4][5]

At the second semi-final of the 2009 contest, Urban Symphony qualified Estonia to the final of the contest for the first time since 2003, receiving 115 points and placing 3rd. The group performed 15th in the final, where it received 129 points, placing 6th of 25 competing entries as well as being the highest placing non-English language song at the 2009 competition.

In 2010, Estonia failed to qualify to the final, with the song "Siren" by Malcolm Lincoln.

In 2011, Estonia was represented by Getter Jaani with the song "Rockefeller Street". She was the bookmakers' pre-contest favorite for victory along with France. She qualified to the final but eventually placed 24th of 25 entries- tying Silvi Vrait's 1994 result for Estonia's worst placing in the contest final.

Since 2012, Estonia has achieved three more top ten results. Ott Lepland qualified Estonia to the final of the 2012 contest, with his song "Kuula", ending up 4th in the second semi-final. In the final, he equalled Estonia's result of 1999 and 2009, placing 6th. Elina Born and Stig Rästa finished seventh in 2015 and Elina Nechayeva finished eighth in 2018.

Contestants

Table key
1	Winner
3	Third place
◁	Last place
X	Entry selected but did not compete

Year	Artist	Language	Title	Final	Points	Semi	Points
1993	Janika Sillamaa	Estonian	"Muretut meelt ja südametuld"	Failed to qualify[lower-alpha 1]		5	47
1994	Silvi Vrait	Estonian	"Nagu merelaine"	24	2	No semi-finals
1996	Maarja-Liis Ilus & Ivo Linna	Estonian	"Kaelakee hääl"	5	94	5	106
1997	Maarja-Liis Ilus	Estonian	"Keelatud maa"	8	82	No semi-finals
1998	Koit Toome	Estonian	"Mere lapsed"	12	36
1999	Evelin Samuel & Camille	English	"Diamond of Night"	6	90
2000	Ines	English	"Once in a Lifetime"	4	98
2001	Tanel Padar/Dave Benton/2XL	English	"Everybody"	1	198
2002	Sahlene	English	"Runaway"	3	111
2003	Ruffus	English	"Eighties Coming Back"	21	14
2004	Neiokõsõ	Võro	"Tii"	Failed to qualify		11	57
2005	Suntribe	English	"Let's Get Loud"			20	31
2006	Sandra Oxenryd	English	"Through My Window"			18	28
2007	Gerli Padar	English	"Partners in Crime"			22	33
2008	Kreisiraadio	Serbian, German, Finnish	"Leto svet"			18	8
2009	Urban Symphony	Estonian	"Rändajad"	6	129	3	115
2010	Malcolm Lincoln & Manpower 4	English	"Siren"	Failed to qualify		14	39
2011	Getter Jaani	English	"Rockefeller Street"	24	44	9	60
2012	Ott Lepland	Estonian	"Kuula"	6	120	4	100
2013	Birgit Õigemeel	Estonian	"Et uus saaks alguse"	20	19	10	52
2014	Tanja	English	"Amazing"	Failed to qualify		12	36
2015	Elina Born & Stig Rästa	English	"Goodbye to Yesterday"	7	106	3	105
2016	Jüri Pootsmann	English	"Play"	Failed to qualify		18 ◁	24
2017	Koit Toome & Laura	English	"Verona"	Failed to qualify		14	85
2018	Elina Nechayeva	Italian	"La forza"	8	245	5	201
2019	Victor Crone	English	"Storm"	20	76	4	198
2020	Uku Suviste	English	"What Love Is"	Contest cancelled[lower-alpha 2] X

Hostings

Year	Location	Venue	Presenters
2002	Tallinn	Saku Suurhall	Annely Peebo and Marko Matvere

Related involvement

Heads of delegation

Year	Head of delegation	Ref.
1997–2008	Juhan Paadam	[6]
2009–2015	Heidy Purga	[7]
2015–2018	Mart Normet	[8]
2019–	Tomi Rahula	[9]

Costume designers

Year	Costume designers	Ref.
2013	Karolin Kuusik	[10]

Commentators and spokespersons

Year	Television commentator	Radio commentator	Russian commentator	Spokesperson
1994	Vello Rand	Marko Reikop (Raadio 2)	No broadcast	Urve Tiidus
1995	Jüri Pihel	No broadcast		Did not participate
1996		Marko Reikop (Raadio 2)		Annika Talvik
1997				Helene Tedre
1998	Reet Linna			Urve Tiidus
1999	Marko Reikop	Vello Rand (Raadio 2)		Mart Sander
2000				Evelin Samuel
2001				Ilo-Mai Küttim (Elektra)
2002				Ilo-Mai Küttim (Elektra)
2003				Ines
2004				Maarja-Liis Ilus
2005		Mart Juur (Raadio 2) Andrus Kivirähk (Raadio 2)		Maarja-Liis Ilus
2006				Evelin Samuel
2007				Laura Põldvere
2008				Sahlene
2009	Marko Reikop and Olav Osolin (final)			Laura Põldvere
2010	Marko Reikop and Sven Lõhmus (final)			Rolf Roosalu
2011	Marko Reikop			Piret Järvis
2012			Ilja Ban, Dmitri Vinogradov and Aleksandra Moorast (Raadio 4)	Getter Jaani
2013			No broadcast	Rolf Roosalu
2014				Lauri Pihlap
2015				Tanja
2016			Aleksandr Hobotov	Daniel Levi Viinalass
2017			Aleksandr Hobotov and Julia Kalenda	Jüri Pootsmann
2018				Ott Evestus
2019		No broadcast		Kelly Sildaru

Photogallery

Neiokõsõ in Istanbul (2004)
Sandra Oxenryd in Athens (2006)
Gerli Padar in Helsinki (2007)
Kreisiraadio in Belgrade (2008)
Urban Symphony in Moscow (2009)
Malcolm Lincoln & Manpower 4 in Oslo (2010)
Birgit Õigemeel in Malmö (2013)
Tanja in Copenhagen (2014)
Elina Born & Stig Rästa in Vienna (2015)
Jüri Pootsmann in Stockholm (2016)
Koit Toome & Laura in Kiev (2017)
Elina Nechayeva in Lisbon (2018)
Victor Crone in Tel Aviv (2019)

Notes

Estonia unsuccessfully attempted to participate in 1993, when there was a pre-qualifying round for seven countries hoping to make their debut in the contest. The official Eurovision site does not count 1993 in Estonia's list of appearances.
The 2020 contest was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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References

Floras, Stella (2008-08-22). "Estonia: Minister discusses possible boycott of Eurovision in Moscow". ESCToday. Retrieved 2008-08-22.
Floras, Stella (2008-09-17). "Estonia will participate in 2009". ESCToday. Retrieved 2008-09-17.
"Estonia: Staging modern fairytale". 2009-04-26. Retrieved 2009-05-19.
Calleja Bayliss, Marc (2009-03-07). "Urban Symphony to represent Estonia in Moscow". Oikotimes. Archived from the original on 2009-03-10. Retrieved 2009-03-07.
Webb, Glen (2009-03-07). "Urban Symphony win Eesti Laul in Estonia". EBU. Retrieved 2009-03-07.
"FOTOD: Legendaarne eurolaulu produtsent Juhan Paadam köitis oma mälestused üheks suureks raamatuks". kroonika.delfi.ee. 9 March 2017. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
"FOTOD: Legendaarne eurolaulu produtsent Juhan Paadam köitis oma mälestused üheks suureks raamatuks". kroonika.delfi.ee. 9 March 2017. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
Welsh, Eleanor (22 January 2018). "Estonia: Head of Delegation Mart Normet to step down after Lisbon 2018". esctoday.com. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
Maddalozzo, Riccardo (23 June 2018). "Estonia: ERR appoints Tomi Rahula as new head of Eesti Laul". escxtra.com. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
Eleanor Cooper (May 4, 2013). "Estonia: Birgit reveals her outfit for Malmö". esctoday.com.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

[6] Estonia unsuccessfully attempted to participate in 1993, when there was a pre-qualifying round for seven countries hoping to make their debut in the contest. The official Eurovision site does not count 1993 in Estonia's list of appearances.

[7] The 2020 contest was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[1] Floras, Stella (2008-08-22). "Estonia: Minister discusses possible boycott of Eurovision in Moscow". ESCToday. Retrieved 2008-08-22.

[2] Floras, Stella (2008-09-17). "Estonia will participate in 2009". ESCToday. Retrieved 2008-09-17.

[title-3] "Estonia: Staging modern fairytale". 2009-04-26. Retrieved 2009-05-19.

[Estonia1-4] Calleja Bayliss, Marc (2009-03-07). "Urban Symphony to represent Estonia in Moscow". Oikotimes. Archived from the original on 2009-03-10. Retrieved 2009-03-07.

[Estonia2-5] Webb, Glen (2009-03-07). "Urban Symphony win Eesti Laul in Estonia". EBU. Retrieved 2009-03-07.

[8] "FOTOD: Legendaarne eurolaulu produtsent Juhan Paadam köitis oma mälestused üheks suureks raamatuks". kroonika.delfi.ee. 9 March 2017. Retrieved 29 January 2020.

[9] "FOTOD: Legendaarne eurolaulu produtsent Juhan Paadam köitis oma mälestused üheks suureks raamatuks". kroonika.delfi.ee. 9 March 2017. Retrieved 29 January 2020.

[10] Welsh, Eleanor (22 January 2018). "Estonia: Head of Delegation Mart Normet to step down after Lisbon 2018". esctoday.com. Retrieved 7 December 2019.

[11] Maddalozzo, Riccardo (23 June 2018). "Estonia: ERR appoints Tomi Rahula as new head of Eesti Laul". escxtra.com. Retrieved 29 January 2020.

[12] Eleanor Cooper (May 4, 2013). "Estonia: Birgit reveals her outfit for Malmö". esctoday.com.