Netherlands wins Eurovision

Posted by Alexandra Green on Monday, May 20, 2019 ·

“This is to dreaming big. This is to music first, always.”

ÐÐ°ÑÑÐ¸Ð½ÐºÐ¸ Ð¿Ð¾ Ð·Ð°Ð¿ÑÐ¾ÑÑ Netherlands wins Eurovision

The Netherlands’ Duncan Laurence has won the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest with his song Arcade.

He had been the bookmakers’ favourite to win, and came through to the top of the leaderboard with 492 points after the public vote.

The UK’s Michael Rice came bottom, after getting just three points from the public vote, and a total of 16 points for Bigger Than Us.

Laurence said: “Here’s to dreaming big, this is to music first, always.”

The last time The Netherlands won was 1975. The audience joined in as Laurence performed the track again at the end of the show.

Italy finished second with 465 and Russia third with 369 points.

The ceremony also saw last year’s winner Netta perform, while singers from previous contests also sang each other’s songs.

Conchita Wurst, Mans Zelmerlow, Gali Atari, Eleni Foureira and Vjerka Serdjucka

The contest also featured a performance from American superstar Madonna, and a crowd-pleasing segment that saw previous winners sing hit songs from the competition’s history.

But, like a handful of editions in the past, it struggled to shake off an overbearing political row. After protests in the host city and abroad leading up to the show, popular Icelandic group Hatari raised Palestinian flags during the broadcast.

Madonna had a message of her own, featuring dancers with both Palestinian and Israeli flags on their backs.

The contest will next head to the Netherlands, with the winning nation taking over hosting duties for a year. The country’s victory is its fifth in total, joining the UK, France and Luxembourg in the all-time ranks. Only Ireland and Sweden, which the Netherlands topped for the title, have won more contests.

Israel earned the right to host the show after Barzilai won last year’s competition with her catchy pop anthem “Toy.”