Last night, Miki won the Eurovision Gala of the 2018 Operación Triunfo season with his song “La Venda” and will be heading to Tel Aviv in May to represent Spain at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest.
In a slightly different format to last year, this years’ Eurovision Gala took place after Operación Triunfo had wrapped up the main competition, which saw Famous crowned the winner. After this, thirteen of the contestants who made it into the Academy back in September were assigned thirteen songs between them. The public then got to choose their favourites through an online vote, where the three songs with the most votes advanced to the Eurovision Gala.
A committee then selected a further seven songs to go through. Nine of these were solos with the final song being a duet between Miki and Natalia. All selected contestants performed last night for the chance to represent Spain at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest with Miki coming out on top after the Spanish televote.
You can see the full voting results below:
- Miki – “La Venda” – 34%
- María – “Muérdeme” – 22%
- Miki and Natalia – “Nadie se salva” – 14%
- Noelia – “Hoy vuelvo a reír otra vez” – 7%
- Natalia – “La clave” – 6%
- Marilia – “Todo bien” – 6%
- Famous – “No puedo más” – 5%
- Julia – “Qué quieres que haga” – 3%
- Sabela – “Hoy soñaré” – 2%
- Carlos Right – “Se te nota” – 1%
You can watch Miki perform “La Venda” at the Eurovision Gala below:
Spain hasn’t fared well in the contest for a number of years now, only making it into the top ten on three occasions since 2004. They have won the contest twice in the competition’s history with back to back wins in 1968 and 1969, but this seems like a distant memory now.
Miki will be following in the footsteps of Alfred and Amaia, who represented Spain at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon with their beautiful duet “Tu Canción”. Although the song was loved by fans worldwide, it only finished twenty-third in the grand final. Spain will be hoping Miki’s up-tempo number can change their fortunes and get them to the top of that leaderboard in Tel Aviv.
As one of the big five, Spain is already guaranteed a place in the final but to win, Miki will have to gain the most points out of all the entrants. Announced so far are Srbuk for Armenia, Tamta for Cyprus, Jonida Maliqi for Albania and Eliot Vassamillet for Belgium. The other countries are expected to reveal their acts in the forthcoming months.
The 2019 Eurovision Song Contest will be hosted at the Expo Tel Aviv in Israel after Netta won last year with the song “Toy”. The two Semi-Finals will take place on 14 May and 16 May with the Grand Final taking place on 18 May. A total of 42 countries will compete in the contest.