Australia Comes Second In Eurovision, Russia Not Happy
Australia’s Dami Im has placed second in the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest with her track Sound Of Silence (not to be confused with Simon and Garfunkel or Disturbed). This year’s crown was taken out by Ukraine’s JAMALA and her song 1944, which scored a total of 534 points to Australia’s 511. Russia’s entry, Sergey Lazarev and his song You Are The Only One, placed third on 342 points.
Dami Im was ecstatic after the results were confirmed. “Coming second in the Eurovision Song Contest is by far the most amazing achievement for me and for Australia, I will never forget the last two weeks,” she stated.
However, the result was not without controversy with the winning Ukrainian entry drawing the ire of Russia. 1944 is about tragic events during the Second World War, when Crimean Tartars were deported by Soviet authorities, with many interpreting the song as an analogy for the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Russian senator Frants Klintsevich said “it was politics that beat art” in this year’s competition, with some Russian publications stating the Russian entry was robbed.
This year’s competition was notable for a change in scoring systems, with each country’s professional jury votes being counted separate to their popular vote, rather than combining the two, as in previous years. At the end of the professional jury voting round, Australia was leading with 300 ahead of second place.
Off the back of the competition, viewed by an estimated 200 million people worldwide, Sound of Silence has climbed to the top of the iTunes charts in Australia, and is in similar positions on charts all across Europe. Im was Australia’s second entry in the Contest after Guy Sebastian’s entry last year placed fifth.
Im wasn’t the only Australian with high scores on the night. Songwriters Anthony Egizii and David Musumeci of DNA Songs came away with the coveted Eurovision Composers Award, for their work on Sound of Silence, with a total of 40 out of 42 votes in their category.
