Unpredictable as ever

There were lots of discussions in Athens among the media and fans who would be the winner of the 51st Eurovision Song Contest. Sweden, represented by Carola and her song Invincible, was named very often. The singer had already won the Eurovision Song Contest in1991 and wanted to be the second person on earth to win it twice. Another hotly tipped winner was Russian heartthrob Dima Bilan, who had already tried to represent Russia the year before. German group Texas Lightning did well in at the bookmakers with their refreshing pop-country song No No Never, but the song only managed to end up at a disappointing 14th place. Anna Vissi, the Greek pop queen who had already entered the contests of 1980 (for Greece) and 1982 (for Cyprus) had high hopes as well to win the competition with her dramatic performance of Everything.

About the winner

However, not many experts expected the masked hardrockers Lordi to get the trophy. With their Hard Rock Hallelujah and their performance filled with spectacular pyrotechnical effects, the Finns managed to win the contest with 292 points. Funnily enough, they had the exact same score in the Semi-Final! These 292 points are the highest amount of points ever achieved in a Eurovision Song Contest to date. Lordi went on to have lots of success with their song which made the top 10 in dozens of European charts.

2006 saw some rule changes in the voting of the Eurovision Song Contest Final. Not all points were read out by the national spokespersons any longer as the marks from 1 point till 7 points were automatically beamed onto the screen, and just the three highest votes were still announced by the national spokespersons. The reason for this was that the voting in the previous years seemed too long, and with this rule change, the organizers wanted to streamline the show.