Germany celebrates rare Eurovision win
Source: Agencies |
May 31, 2010, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
GERMANY celebrated its first win in the Eurovision Song Contest in nearly three decades yesterday with fireworks, street parties and a frenzied revelry normally reserved for World Cup soccer victories.
A teenager named Lena ended Germany's long losing streak in the popular European-wide song competition with an improbable triumph over 24 other finalists in a live show from Oslo, Norway, watched by more than 100 million people across Europe.
"Europe does like us!" wrote Bild am Sonntag, the country's best-selling Sunday newspaper on page one after Lena clinched victory in the pan-European voting just after midnight.
Fireworks lit up the sky in Berlin, in Hamburg where 70,000 people watched the contest on giant TV screens in a central square, and in Lena's hometown of Hanover.
Hanover will host a nationally televised homecoming rally for Lena, a high school student whose full name is Lena Meyer-Landrut. The song contest might be dismissed as tacky in some countries but it is serious stuff in Germany.
Germany had complained bitterly in the past when even top acts from the country such as No Angels often ended up near the bottom. Since taking 24th place in 2005, Germans were 15th in 2006, 19th in 2007, 23rd for No Angels in 2008 and 20th in 2009.
That prompted national soul-searching and fretting about being disliked across Europe.
"This definitely was not to be expected," the energetic 19-year-old Lena told 10 million German TV viewers.
Lena was an unknown before she won Germany's qualifiers for the contest earlier this year. She has since become a national celebrity due to her catchy love song "Satellite," an infectious enthusiasm and her signature short black dresses.
A teenager named Lena ended Germany's long losing streak in the popular European-wide song competition with an improbable triumph over 24 other finalists in a live show from Oslo, Norway, watched by more than 100 million people across Europe.
"Europe does like us!" wrote Bild am Sonntag, the country's best-selling Sunday newspaper on page one after Lena clinched victory in the pan-European voting just after midnight.
Fireworks lit up the sky in Berlin, in Hamburg where 70,000 people watched the contest on giant TV screens in a central square, and in Lena's hometown of Hanover.
Hanover will host a nationally televised homecoming rally for Lena, a high school student whose full name is Lena Meyer-Landrut. The song contest might be dismissed as tacky in some countries but it is serious stuff in Germany.
Germany had complained bitterly in the past when even top acts from the country such as No Angels often ended up near the bottom. Since taking 24th place in 2005, Germans were 15th in 2006, 19th in 2007, 23rd for No Angels in 2008 and 20th in 2009.
That prompted national soul-searching and fretting about being disliked across Europe.
"This definitely was not to be expected," the energetic 19-year-old Lena told 10 million German TV viewers.
Lena was an unknown before she won Germany's qualifiers for the contest earlier this year. She has since become a national celebrity due to her catchy love song "Satellite," an infectious enthusiasm and her signature short black dresses.
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