Thousands of fans the annual singing competition comes to the UK for the first time since 1998, with our very own Mae Maller flying the flag for the host nation.
This year’s show sees 37 acts, including last year’s winners , strutting their stuff at the Bank Arena in a bid to nab those coveted ‘douze points’ and potentially win the contest for their own country.
Among those who is the hot favourite to win with her song Tattoo and in doing so, hand the Scandinavian nation their seventh win at the song contest.
If she does, Sweden will equal the record for the most wins at Eurovision, while Loreen will become only the second act ever to win the contest twice.
Both of those records belong to the same country – but who has has actually lifted the Eurovision trophy the most often?
Here’s what you need to know…
Which country has won Eurovision the most times?
Currently, the country which has the most Eurovision victories under its belt is Ireland.
Although their fortunes on the Eurovision stage may have been more mixed of late Ireland have actually won the contest no less than seven times, dominating the left hand side of the scoreboard from the 70s through to the 90s.
Their first win came in 1970 with Dana’s All Kinds Of Everything, then Johnny Logan snatched victory at the 1980 contest in The Hague with What’s Another Year.
Logan won again for Ireland in 1987 with Hold Me Now – in doing so become the only artist ever to win Eurovision twice.
The Emerald Isle then scored no less than four victories in the 1990s.
They notched up three successive wins in 1992, 1993 and 1994, with Linda Martin’s ballad Why Me (which was written by Johnny Logan), In Your Eyes by Niamh Kavanagh and Paul Harris and Charlie McGettigan’s Rock n’Roll Kids.
They had a year’s respite from hosting after Norway’s Nocturne won in 1995, but promptly won it yet again the following year in Oslo, with Eimear Quinn’s The Voice surging to victory ahead of such competitors as the UK’s Gina G.
Their streak of wins even inspired the Father Ted episode A Song For Europe, in which the song My Lovely Horse is chosen to represent Ireland in the contest – which aired in April 1996, right before Ireland scored their seventh victory.
The following year’s contest, which took place in Dublin, saw the UK take top honours with Love Shine A Light, although Ireland came close to a fifth victory in the space of a decade, ending the contest in second place.
This year’s hopefuls aiming to bring glory who’ll be performing their track We Are One in the first semi-final on May 9, in their bid to return the Irish to the final for the first time since 2018.
Which other countries have won more than once?
Sweden are currently in second place on six wins – although they also won in 1984, 1991, 1999, 2012 and most recently in 2015.
Luxembourg – who have not taken part since 1993 – are nonetheless next in the league table with five wins, while Netherlands and France have also taken the trophy five times.
And in spite of some recent Euro-flops the UK also has an impressive track record with five victories – winning the contest in 1967, 1969, 1976, 1981 and most recently in 1997 with Katrina and The Waves.
Israel is next in the league table with four wins, while Norway, Denmark, Italy and Ukraine have notched up three victories each, and Spain, Austria, Germany and Austria have each won twice.
The list of countries with a single win to their name is even longer: it includes Monaco, Belgium, Estonia, Latvia, Turkey, Greece, Finland, Serbia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Portugal and Yugoslavia.
Meanwhile spare a thought for such long-term participants as Cyprus, Iceland, Slovenia, Malta, Lithuania, and Romania (among others) – who despite being a part of proceedings for a number of decades have yet to notch up their first victory.
Nobody ever said winning Eurovision was easy…
The Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals are on BBC One on Tuesday May 9 and Thursday May 11 at 8pm. The grand final is on BBC One on Saturday May 13 at 8pm.
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