Seventh place in Eurovision brings joy to Elina, Stig and Estonian fans alike
Saturday saw the grand finale of the 60th Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, with Swedish entry Måns Zelmerlöw taking home the win with "Heroes". The Estonian entry, "Goodbye to Yesterday", performed by Elina Born and Stig Rästa, came in seventh with 106 points. The Estonian delegation has expressed their happiness with the result, having outdone far larger countries.
The Estonian Eurovision delegation, fronted by singers Elina Born and Stig Rästa, are happy having placed seventh in this year's contest, as the competition faced by the Estonian duo was tough. "We had tough competition. We really are happy with seventh place," Born told ERR.
"And we came in first out of all the duets – which is what everybody kept reminding us – that there are too many duets. Luckily, we outdid a lot of larger countries," Rästa added.
The fact that Estonia received a stable flow of points from beginning to end also provided a reason for celebration.
"We actually ended up getting points from almost every country, which really made us happy. Even from countries we really wouldn't have expected them from," Born noted.
Saturday's audience also did not fail to notice the emotional performance put on by the Estonian duo, with singer Elina Born moved to tears on stage.
"It came from the heart. I'm an emotional girl, I've always been an emotional girl. You think about the song, you think about its message and that's just how it goes and was meant to go," she explained. "It'd be nice to stay here. Of course, it's also nice to go home and think that that's done now."
Rästa added that in his opinion the first and second place went to world-class songwriters and producers.
"It's difficult to argue with the results, one can only learn from them," he said.
"You could commission the song from anyone: Americans, Swedes or the Udmurt people. I think that Estonia should keep on beaming local composers and music to the world. I don't think we need to commission composers or have someone else write our songs, but rather we should keep on going with Estonian music," he said, adding that his personal favorite in this year's competition was Austria, who unfortunately came in last.
Sunday morning saw the return of the duo and the rest of the Estonian delegation to Tallinn.
Having swept this year's competition with the song "Heroes" with 365 points, Måns Zelmerlöw is the sixth Swedish entry to win Eurovision. That leaves Sweden just one short of Ireland's total of seven wins.
Sweden was followed on the scoreboard by Russia with 303 points and Italy with 292 points. Belgium placed fourth, Australia fifth and Latvia sixth. Estonia's entry received its highest number of points from Finland, with the neighbors giving "Goodbye to Yesterday" the second highest score of 10 points. Estonia gave its maximum points of 12 to Russia and 10 to Sweden.
Final results:
Editor: A. Kaer