Eurovision Song Contest 2001
The Eurovision Song Contest 2001 was the 46th edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, following the Olsen Brothers' win at the 2000 contest in Stockholm, Sweden with the song "Fly on the Wings of Love".
The hosting marked the second time the contest was held on Danish soil, after the 1964 contest - 37 years earlier.
23 countries took part in the contest, which was held on 12 May 2001. The host venue was the Parken Stadium - the largest venue to ever host the contest as of 2019. A total of 35,000 spectators saw the show live from within the stadium, breaking the record of 16,000 held by the previous year's hosts Sweden.
The show was opened by the Olsen Brothers, with a snippet from their winning song "Fly on the Wings of Love", followed by their latest single "Walk Right Back", which was already a smash hit in Denmark at the time.
The presenters were Danish journalist and TV-show presenter Natasja Crone Back and the famous Danish actor Søren Pilmark who spoke most of their announcements in rhyming couplets.
France, Greece and Slovenia were the heavy favourites to win the contest; however, as the voting progressed it became a two-horse race between Estonia and the host country Denmark.
The contest was won by Estonia, represented by Tanel Padar, Dave Benton & 2XL with the song "Everybody", written by Ivar Must and Maian-Anna Karmas, which scored a total of 198 points. The host nation, Denmark, finished in 2nd place with 177 points. Coming 3rd were Greece with 147 points - giving the country their best result up until this point. France came 4th with 142 points, and in 5th place were Sweden with 100 points.
Dave Benton, who was born and raised in Aruba, was the first black person and, at the age of 50 years and 101 days, the oldest contestant at the time to win the contest. Furthermore, this was the first victory for one of the Baltic states and one of the former Soviet republics.
Location
, the capital of Denmark was the host city for the 46th edition of Eurovision. The venue choice for the contest was Parken Stadium, a football stadium in the Indre Østerbro district of Copenhagen, Denmark, built from 1990–1992.The Danish national broadcaster faced some problems whilst organising the contest such as a lack of funds and the search for a suitable venue. The three largest cities in Denmark - Copenhagen, Aarhus and Odense - all made bids to host the contest. Eventually, DR chose the large football stadium Parken as the host venue, after the company running the stadium agreed to add a retractable roof to the building. This solution made it the biggest venue ever to host a Eurovision Song Contest, but the scale of it wasn't entirely a success: many of the 38,000 people in the audience could not see the stage, and for many entries the hall appeared to be too big.
Format
The logo of the 2001 Eurovision Song Contest was made out of four circles, placed in the shape of a heart. The four circles were also present in the stage design, with the light construction was made of the same four rings.Changes occurred in the qualification process for the 2002 Contest: along with the "Big 4" countries, the top 15 placed countries would qualify for next year's competition. The other spots for 2002 would be filled by countries that were excluded from the 2001 contest because of their low point average for the years 1996–2000. Had the older qualification rule still been in use, the relegated countries from 2002 would have been Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Slovenia.
Draw for the running order took place on 21 November 2000.
Incidents
Controversy was again rife in the contest: the United Kingdom TV commentator Terry Wogan repeatedly made critical comments about the hosts and dubbed them "Doctor Death and the Tooth Fairy/The Little Mermaid" after providing their entire commentary in rhyming couplets. The Danes were so offended that the BBC was obliged to issue an apology on Wogan's comments.Controversy also surrounded the Swedish song, "Listen To Your Heartbeat", which was repeatedly accused as a plagiarism of the Belgian entry for the 1996 Contest, "Liefde is een kaartspel". Eventually the EBU decided for the matter to be settled in court, with the song allowed to compete as long as the courts did not declare the song as plagiarism.
At first this was denied by the Swedish songwriters, one of whom was, but after the Belgian songwriters and the author's organisation SABAM pressed for legal action, a cash settlement was agreed.
During the voting the Danish band Aqua performed with a medley of their singles, with percussion ensemble Safri Duo performing in the medley. Although enjoyable, people complained about it being a little bit "rude" as there was some swearing during the performance, both at the beginning and end of "Barbie Girl".
Participating countries
Due to the EBU's relegation rule of the lowest ranked countries from the contest had to miss the follow year's contest, meant several countries could not participate, while relegated countries from the 1999 contest were able to return this year. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, and Slovenia returned, while Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, Macedonia, Romania, and Switzerland, the seven countries with the lowest average result in the past five contests, were relegated. This brought the total number of participating countries to twenty-three.Returning artists
was a backing vocalist for Ines in 2000.Results
Countries in bold were allowed to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest 2002.| Draw | Country | Artist | Song | Language | Place | Points |
| 01 | Michelle | "Out on My Own" | English | 18 | 16 | |
| 02 | Two Tricky | "Angel" | English | 22 | 3 | |
| 03 | ' | Nino Pršeš | "Hano" | Bosnian, English | 14 | 29 |
| 04 | Haldor Lægreid | "On My Own" | English | 22 | 3 | |
| 05 | ' | Tal Sondak | "En Davar" | Hebrew | 16 | 25 |
| 06 | ' | Mumiy Troll | "Lady Alpine Blue" | English | 12 | 37 |
| 07 | ' | Friends | "Listen to Your Heartbeat" | English | 5 | 100 |
| 08 | ' | SKAMP | "You Got Style" | English, Lithuanian | 13 | 35 |
| 09 | Arnis Mednis | "Too Much" | English | 18 | 16 | |
| 10 | ' | Vanna | "Strings of My Heart" | English | 10 | 42 |
| 11 | ' | MTM | "Só sei ser feliz assim" | Portuguese | 17 | 18 |
| 12 | Gary O'Shaughnessy | "Without Your Love" | English | 21 | 6 | |
| 13 | ' | David Civera | "Dile que la quiero" | Spanish | 6 | 76 |
| 14 | ' | Natasha St-Pier | "Je n'ai que mon âme" | French, English | 4 | 142 |
| 15 | ' | Sedat Yüce | "Sevgiliye Son" | Turkish, English | 11 | 41 |
| 16 | ' | Lindsay Dracass | "No Dream Impossible" | English | 15 | 28 |
| 17 | ' | Nuša Derenda | "Energy" | English | 7 | 70 |
| 18 | Piasek | "2 Long" | English | 20 | 11 | |
| 19 | ' | Michelle | "Wer Liebe lebt" | German, English | 8 | 66 |
| 20 | ' | Tanel Padar, Dave Benton & 2XL | "Everybody" | English | 1 | 198 |
| 21 | ' | Fabrizio Faniello | "Another Summer Night" | English | 9 | 48 |
| 22 | ' | Antique | " Die for You" | Greek, English | 3 | 147 |
| 23 | Rollo & King | "Never Ever Let You Go" | English | 2 | 177 |
Scoreboard
The majority of participating countries held a televote, where the top ten most voted for songs were awarded the 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 points. This year the EBU introduced for the first time a mix of voting systems for those countries that didn't want to use 100% televoting. Only three votes were allowed per household.According to the EBU rules, every broadcaster was free to make a choice between the full televoting system and the mixed 50-50 system. In exceptional circumstances, where televoting was not possible at all, only a jury was used: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkey and Russia. Only a few countries are confirmed to have used the mixed voting system: Croatia, Greece and Malta.
12 points
Below is a summary of all 12 points in the final:| N. | Contestant | Voting nation |
| 9 | Estonia | Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Turkey, United Kingdom |
| 6 | Denmark | Iceland, Croatia, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Norway |
| 3 | France | Bosnia and Herzegovina, Portugal, Russia |
| 2 | Greece | Spain, Sweden |
| 1 | Spain | Israel |
| 1 | Malta | Denmark |
| 1 | Portugal | France |
International broadcasts and voting
Voting and spokespersons
The spokespersons announced the score from their respective country's televote in running order.- – Marlayne
- – Eva María Jónsdóttir
- – Segmedina Srna
- – Roald Øyen
- – Yoav Ginai
- – Larisa Verbitskaya
- – Josefine Sundström
- – Loreta Tarozaitė
- – Renārs Kaupers
- – Daniela Trbović
- – Margarida Mercês de Mello
- – Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh
- – Jennifer Rope
- – Corinne Hermès
- – Meltem Ersan Yazgan
- – Colin Berry
- – Mojca Mavec
- – Maciej Orłoś
- – Axel Bulthaupt
- – Ilomai Küttim "Elektra"
- – Marbeck Spiteri
- – Alexis Kostalas
- – Gry Johansen
Commentators
Participating countries
- – Ismeta Dervoz-Krvavac
- – Ante Batinović, Draginja Balaš
- – Hans Otto Bisgaard and Hilda Heick
- – Marko Reikop, Vello Rand
- – Marc-Olivier Fogiel & Dave, Olivier Chiabodo
- – Peter Urban, Thomas Mohr /
- – Dafni Bokota, Giorgos Mitropoulos
- – Gísli Marteinn Baldursson
- – Marty Whelan, Larry Gogan
- – No commentator, Daniel Pe'er
- – Kārlis Streips
- – Darius Užkuraitis
- – Alfred Borg
- – Willem van Beusekom, Hijlco Span
- – Jostein Pedersen, Stein Dag Jensen
- – Artur Orzech
- – Eládio Clímaco
- – Alexandr Anatolievich and Konstantin Mikhailov, Vadim Dolgachev
- – Andrea F
- – José Luis Uribarri
- – Henrik Olsson, Carolina Norén
- – Ömer Önder, Ümit Tunçağ
- – Terry Wogan, Ken Bruce
Non-participating countries
- – Terry Wogan feat. Effie
- – Andi Knoll, Stermann & Grissemann
- – Alex Krugliyakov
- – Dutch: André Vermeulen and Anja Daems, Julien Put and Michel Follet,
- – Evi Papamichail
- – Jani Juntunen and Asko Murtomäki, Iris Mattilalähde and Tarja Närhi
- – Milanka Rašik
- – Andreea Marin & Leonard Miron
- – German: Sandra Studer, French: Phil Mundwiller, Italian: Jonathan Tedesco
- – Unknown
Official album