Finland and Greece have emerged as the two strongest contenders at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Both delivered stunning performances in the competition’s first semi-final overnight, booking a showdown with Australia’s Delta Goodrem in this weekend’s final.
Surfing into Eurovision off the back of a successful pre-competition goodwill tour of Europe, Goodrem is widely tipped as a likely top-five or top-three performer in this year’s competition. Even UK TV host Graham Norton, a critic of Australia’s inclusion in Eurovision, has tipped Goodrem as a potential winner.
Two other countries – Denmark and France – round out the five strongest competitors in the 70th annual Eurovision Song Contest. Denmark will perform along with Australia in Thursday morning’s semi-final; France will perform in Sunday morning’s final.
The 10 winning countries from the first semi-final – Greece, Finland, Belgium, Sweden, Moldova, Israel, Serbia, Croatia, Lithuania and Portugal – now progress to this weekend’s final. That means Estonia, Georgia, Montenegro, Poland and San Marino are out of contention.
Last year’s Australian entrant, Go-Jo, returned as the interval performer, with a song of questionable cultural provenance titled Austria vs Australia, which was notable for both Go-Jo’s improbably tight pants and its failure to adhere to Eurovision’s well-established no-longer-than-three-minutes song rule.
Goodrem, meanwhile, will compete in the second semi-final, held Friday morning Australian time, in which 10 more countries will be selected for the final, and five other countries will be sent home.
Those 20 qualifying countries will then meet four of the so-called “Big Five” – France, Germany, Italy and the UK – and the hosting country (Austria), which automatically book a slot in the final.
The fifth member of the Big Five, Spain, withdrew from this year’s competition, protesting the inclusion of Israel following the war in Gaza. Four other countries joined the boycott: Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovenia.
European geopolitics has often complicated the Eurovision stage, from Greece’s 1976 song Panagia Mou, Panagia Mou, which took its title from the Greek name of the Virgin Mary, was seen by many as a lament about the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, to Bosnia’s 1993 song, Sva bol Svijeta (“All the Pain in the World”), about the disintegration of Yugoslavia two years earlier.
This year’s boycott is significant because of Spain’s central position in the event’s organising body, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), and the strong competitive history of Ireland, which has won seven times, and the Netherlands, which has won five times.
The withdrawal of perceptibly heavyweight players on the Eurovision stage would have been deeply felt. “They are members of our family, right? We miss them … we remain in dialogue to see if we can find pathways for them back,” contest director Martin Green said. The withdrawal of five countries from the competition also hits the bottom line with lost contest participation fees.
Compounding the issue, The New York Times this week published an investigation which revealed the Israeli government had allegedly spent over US$1 million on a co-ordinated “soft power” campaign to manipulate Eurovision results.
This year, the EBU has, in response to concerns, capped the number of votes an individual can cast at 10, down from 20. The Times investigation demonstrated how many hundreds of motivated voters could unexpectedly pour 10,000 or more votes into a system in which victory and loss are determined by narrow margins.
The EBU also restored professional jury scoring to the semi-finals, to minimise the threat of co-ordinated voting strategies, and imposed a stricter code of conduct that forbids competing national broadcasters from working with third-party agencies to campaign for votes.
Despite the diplomatic tensions, the Austrian capital has been largely free of protest so far. The city’s mayor, Michael Ludwig, said that the city “won’t be terrorised into silence.” Authorities say several protests are planned for later in the week; it is understood police from Austria and neighbouring Germany have been deployed in the city.
Capturing the essence of Eurovision is a strange and evolving equation. Historically, it blended European disco and often colourful camp. In its modern iteration, it balances hard commercial pop, power ballads, glam-rock and a whiff of gospel pop. And still, occasionally, throws you a wobbly like dancing grannies, a plastic turkey or a band of Norwegian space wolves.
Eurovision crowns its winner using an archaic scoring system, which involves crossing to each competing country to add their points to the cumulative total. Despite the seemingly glacial process – think of it as a musical Brownlow Medal – it remains one of the most beloved elements of the event among diehard Eurovision fans.
Aside from the five countries tracking strongest in fan polling – Finland, Greece, Denmark, France and Australia – the other strong contenders in this year’s competition include Romania, Israel, Italy, Malta and Sweden.
This is Australia’s 11th year in Eurovision. Our track record is reasonably solid, placing as high as second in 2016, when Dami Im sang Sound of Silence. Only on three occasions – Montaigne in 2021, Electric Fields in 2024 and Gojo in 2025 – have we failed to qualify for the final.
The 2026 competition features artists and songs from 35 countries performing in 20 languages; per the contest’s rules, songs must be original, no longer than three minutes and performed live. The event is being staged at the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, Austria.
SBS will air Eurovision live at 5am AEST on Friday (semi-final 2) and Sunday (grand final). It will be repeated in prime-time at 7.30pm AEST on Friday (semi-final 1), Saturday (semi-final 2) and Sunday (grand final).
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Michael Idato is the culture editor-at-large of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email..png)
