I'm surprised that Malc has been so quiet ....
Not really much point this year - Ukraine nailed on to win.
Oh well - another correct prediction. Won't be bothering the bookies much this year though.
But did you put a few quid on us coming 2nd?
No - the odds weren't good enough for an each way bet (needs to be better than 6:1 IMV - 8:1 preferred) , and I don't know how to do a 'to place' bet.
In a normal year my money would've been on Sweden to win. They can normally rely on significant Baltic Block votes from Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to do the heavy lifting, so all they need to do is come up with a semi decent song and they're in with a shout. However, this year all the smaller and non NATO countries were always going to give their douze points to Ukraine. I also think the UK benefitted from our fairly vocal (and military) support of Ukraine - that is being noticed by the smaller countries, undoing some of the damage that BREXIT did/is doing. On the other hand, the half hearted support for Ukraine from Germany and France is also being noticed, and IMV reflected in their voting.
I also had to laugh at the shocking news that some of the Eurovision voting was suspicious - who would've thunk it
https://eurovisionworld.com/esc/eurovision-2022-votes-from-six-national-juries-removed