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Date Published: 11/05/2022
ARCHIVED - Eurovision 2022: Do Spain and the UK really have a chance of winning this year and hosting next year?
The final of the Eurovision Song Contest is to be held this weekend, and there could be some upsets to the traditional order of things
The Eurovision Song Contest, Europe’s campest, cheesiest television spectacle, is back for another year. A guilty pleasure for some and a nightmare scenario for others, the one thing you can be sure of with Eurovision is that there will be no half measures.
The final will be held in Turin, Italy on Saturday May 14, and favourites to win are, perhaps unsurprisingly, Ukraine. Eurovision is nothing if not political (the UK has consistently and famously come in the bottom five nations for years now due to a certain anti-European sentiment), and this may show itself in a flood of support for Ukraine this year. Unfortunately for the war-torn country, if they do win it will mean they have to host the competition next year, something the beleaguered state is hardly in a position to do right now.
Amazingly, though, Spain and the United Kingdom have risen from the doldrums of Eurovision performance to become among the other favourites to win this year. So what has happened?
Spain has entered the competition this year with Chanel’s song ‘SloMo’, a frenetic and very typically Spanish reggaeton pop song sung in a decidedly modern Spanglish – half Spanish and half English.
The UK, meanwhile, has put forward TikTok influencer star Sam Ryder with the ballad ‘Space Man’, which is actually the first good song the country has produced for Eurovision in a long time.
Both these candidates were actually runners-up in previous editions of Eurovision. Bookies are now expecting Spain to come in fifth place in the classic pay-per-view polls, and the UK is placing third. To find the UK’s most recent success of this level, we have to go all the way back to 2009 when Jade Ewen put the British in the top five.
The first semi-final was held on Tuesday May 10 and the second will be Thursday 12, while the final will be held on Saturday May 14. If you happen to be in Benidorm on that date, get down to the Plaza de la Hispanidad where there will be a massive party to watch the event live.
Eurovision 2023 on the Costa del Sol?
In the event that Spain does win, one city on the Costa del Sol is already preparing its petition to host the competition next year. Torremolinos, Malaga plans to formally request that the city be considered to host the Eurovision Song Contest should Spain do the unthinkable on Saturday.
This was announced by the city’s Mayor during the presentation of Torremolinos Pride, which will take place from May 30 to June 4.
Image: Eurovision.tv
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