Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest raises her prize after winning the final of the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmoe, Sweden, Saturday. (AFP-Yonhap News)
MALMO, Sweden (AP) ― Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest has won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune “Only Teardrops,” despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine.
Juries and television viewers across Europe awarded the barefoot, hippie-chic de Forest for the catchy love song that is driven by her deep, Shakira-like voice. She received a total of 281 points in the glitzy music battle, which also featured a bizarre opera pop number from Romania, the comeback of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” star Bonnie Tyler and an Armenian rock song written by the guitarist of Black Sabbath.
“It was overwhelming and I could really feel the fans and the audience and the people in the arena,” the 20-year-old de Forest told reporters after the winners were announced early Sunday. “I’m really, really excited and happy.”
De Forest was followed by second-place winner Farid Mammadov of Azerbaijan, who got 234 points for the song “Hold Me,” which he performed on top of a glass cubicle containing a male dancer. The Ukraine’s Zlata Ognevich and her song “Gravity” finished third with 214 points.
Ognevich was carried onstage in Saturday night’s finals by the tallest man in the U.S. ― Ukrainian-born Igor Vovkovinskiy. Vovkovinskiy ― who stands 7 feet, 8 inches (234 centimeters) ― wobbled onstage in a fur and feathers, placing the fairy-like Ognevich on a rock where she stood for the rest of the performance.