DoReDos band of Moldova qualifies for final of Eurovision Song Contest 2018

Chisinau, 11 May /MOLDPRES/ - Moldova’s representative, DoReDos band, late on 10 May qualified for the Great Final of the 63rd issue of the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 with the song, My Lucky Day. The final is to be held in Lisbon, Portugal, on 12 May.  

Following the second semi-final, held on 10 May, nine countries qualified for the great final. It is about Serbia, Hungary, Ukraine, Sweden, Australia, Norway, Denmark, Slovenia and the Netherlands. Singers from Russia, Serbia, Denmark, Romania, Australia, Norway, San Marino, the Netherlands, Montenegro, Sweden, Hungary, Malta, Latvia, Georgia, Poland, Slovenia and Ukraine performed on stage in Lisbon along with representatives of Moldova.  

Austria, Estonia, Cyprus, Lithuania, Israel, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Albania, Finland and Ireland qualified for the great final in the first semi-final.   

According to betting houses, the band DoReDos had quite big chances to quality, with Moldova being placed on the ninth position in the final classification. The neighbour countries of Moldova were much lower in the ranking, with Ukraine being on the 20th position and and Romania – on the 30th. The favourite of the top is the representative of Cyprus, Eleni Foureira, with the song Fuego. After the first semi-final, the representative of Israel, Netta Barzilai, who was on the first position in the ranking, went down by two positions.   

According to the most accessed independent webpage dedicated to the Eurovision Song Contest, www.wiwibloggs.com, Moldova is one of the countries with the biggest increase of the rating and was the third favourite for the semi-final of 10 May. The first countries of the ranking of the second semi-final were Norway and Sweden. At the same time, betting houses forecast that Russia would not qualify for the Great Final due on 12 May.    

The founding countries of the contest, France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and Italy, directly qualify for the final, along with the host country, Portugal. Yet, they voted in the semi-finals, according to the drawing of lots.   

Eurovision Song Contest is an international musical competition organized by the European Broadcasting Union – the biggest association of public televisions from Europe. Broadcast uninterruptedly during more than 60 years, the show has become one of the long-lasting and watched TV programmes in the world.  

In 2017, Moldova’s representatives, members of the SunStroke Project, ranked third at Eurovision with the song, Hey Mamma. This was the best performance achieved by Moldova at this contest. Moldova has been participating in the Eurovision Contest starting from 2005. In that year, the band Zdob si Zdub ranked sixth.  

(Reporter N. Roibu, editor A. Raileanu)