Ukranian singer-songwriter Mélovin was last night chosen to represent Ukraine at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest. After a tight battle with favourite Tayanna, Mélovin came out on top to win the country’s national selection show (Vidbir 2018) with the song “Under The Ladder”.
Broadcaster STB staged the national final for the third year running, with eighteen contestants taking part in two semi-finals. The top three from each went through to the final which was broadcast last night. Contestants had to impress a panel made up of 2016 winner Jamala, Yehven Filatov and Andriy Danylko, as well as the viewing public. A stunning performance from Mélovin, both vocally and with staging, saw the singer win the televote and come second with the jury. He, therefore, won the contest and will be off to Lisbon in May to compete in the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest.
You can watch Mélovin perform “Under The Ladder” below:
Ukraine first entered the Eurovision Song Contest in 2003 and have had many successes over the years. They have won the contest on two occasions, firstly in 2004 with Ruslana and more recently with Jamala in 2016. As well as this, they have also finished in the top three on a further three occasions. Last year, unfortunately, saw Ukraine achieve their worst result since their debut, with O.Torwald only finishing in twenty-fourth place.
Ukraine will be hoping they can improve on last year and once again take the trophy home, however, they already have some tough competition. Other acts that have been announced so far are Sennek for Belgium, Saara Aalto for Finland, Waylon for the Netherlands, AISEL for Azerbaijan, Cesar Sampson for Austria, Jessica Mauboy for Australia, Eugent Bushpepa for Albania, Iriao for Georgia, Madame Monsieur for France, Julia Samoylova for Russia, Alfred & Amaia for Spain, Mikolas Josef for the Czech Republic, Ryan O’Shaughnessy for Ireland, Eleni Foureira for Cyprus, Christabelle for Malta, Zibbz for Switzerland, SuRie for the United Kingdom, Rasmussen for Denmark, Ermal Meta and Fabrizio Moro for Italy, Eye Cue for F.Y.R Macedonia, Franka for Croatia, Netta Barzilai for Israel, Gianna Terzi for Greece, Vanja Radovanovic for Montenegro, Sanja Ilic and Balkanika for Serbia, Michael Schulte for Germany, DoReDos for Moldova and AWS for Hungary.
The Eurovision Song Contest 2018 will be hosted at the Altice Arena, Lisbon, Portugal; with the two Semi-Finals taking place on 8 May and 10 May and the Grand Final taking place on 12 May. A total of 43 countries will compete in the contest.