Main Page Images Page 1 Images Page 2

Host country: Estonia
Venue: Saku Suurhall, Tallinn
Date: 25 May 2002
Presenters: Anneli Peebo, Marko Matvere
Won by: Latvia

This year's contest proved that Eurovision is nothing if not unpredictable. No one could have guessed beforehand that the contest would turn into a two horse race between Malta and Latvia.

It cannot be ignored though, that both countries were near the end in running order; over the past few years most winners have tended to have been performed in the second half. There were attempts to counter this; one by the reintroduction of juries in several countries, and by showing the songs in reverse order when it came to the reprise - and it's possible that did benefit one country in particular...

After three years in the wilderness, the United Kingdom made something of a comeback this year. Despite performing second, Jessica Garlick's entry 'Come Back' made it into joint third position with Estonia, albeit a rather distant third. Being a ballad, I feared her song would get swamped by the predominance of up-tempo disco songs; however the 111 points she knocked up was more than our previous three years' scores put together!

Once the first country had voted, Greece was in the lead. But that's not very surprising since it was Cyprus doing the voting... Malta and Latvia ran neck and neck all the way through the rest of the scoring, with neither country receiving more than four 'douze points' each. There can be little doubt, however, that Latvia's surprise win (with only their third entry ever), was more down to the outfit than the song, which, as far as I was concerned was forgotten immediately. But Marie N's (left) strip routine towards the end of the song made Buck's Fizz's skirts routine 21 years earlier seem rather lame.

Some of the more memorable performances included some cyber-borgs from Greece who looked like they had escaped from Blake's Seven. Slovenia decided to enter three men dressed as air hostesses (below). Russia entered their Prime Minister...disappointly this in fact turned out to be an ageing boy band. And there was Sweden's silver-clad girl group Afro-Dite described by Terry Wogan as three 'oven ready turkeys'.

Germany, who in recent years have tended to pursue the comedy vote, this year went for the sympathy vote, with singer Corinna May who had been blind from birth. They were one of the favourites to win - but came third bottom. On the other hand, Romania, favourite to come last with the most dreary song of the contest this year, finished in ninth position (the first time they haven't found themselves in the relegation zone).

All going to prove that you can never predict the outcome of the Eurovision Song Contest.
(Apart from the bit where Greece and Cyprus give each other twelve points, of course...)

Click here to view the 2002 scoreboard (opens in new window)

Countries voting are shown across the top, with each country's cumulative total after the country has voted shown in large type, and the points awarded in small type. Each country gave 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points to its top ten songs
BBC broadcast: Saturday 25 May 2002, 8.00-11.00pm. Commentary: BBC1 - Terry Wogan, BBC Choice - Jenny Eclair, Radio 2 - Ken Bruce. UK vote spokesperson: Colin Berry

Click below to see more images from the night's contest:

Main Page Images Page 1 Images Page 2

Back to 2001 Forward to 2003