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Portugal wins Eurovision 2017, Armenia finishes 18th

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14 May, 2017

Portugal's Salvador Sobral won the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday with a gentle romantic ballad that challenged the event's decades-long reputation for cheesy, glittery excess.

"We live in a world of disposable music, fast food music without content and I think this can be a victory for music that means something", he said.

While accepting the award, Sobral said, "Music is not fireworks, music is feeling". Moldova came third with 374 points, at quite a distance from the victor and the runner-up.

Armenia's Artsvik finished 18th with 79 points with her Fly With Me song.

It is a considerable improvement for the United Kingdom, after last year's entrants Joe and Jake came 24th with 62 points.

Sobral, who has a serious heart condition that saw him miss the first week of rehearsals, reprised his song at the end of the show and was joined by his sister Luisa for a duet.

Portugal had been one of the favourites to win, along with Italy's entry, which came sixth. This dwarfed Jamala's win previous year for Ukraine with 534 points.

She added: "Fantastic performance".

It has been the reported that man is a Ukrainian prankster, Vitalii Sediuk.

The stage invader, wrapped in an Australian flag, sneaked on to the performance area before pulling down his shorts and wiggling his bottom at the cameras during the brief escapade.

Graham Norton guided United Kingdom viewers through the contest on BBC One, and described her performance as "stunning", adding: "It has to be one of our strongest entrants in years".

The contest this year took place in the Kiev International Exhibition Centre in Ukraine.

Announcing Israel's scores for the other countries, a Channel 1 host noted that "after broadcasting the competition for the last 44 years, this will be the last time", with the Israel Broadcasting Authority closing down Sunday as part of a major media reform that will see it replaced by a new public media corporation, known as Kan. At 17, he was this year's youngest contestant and he came a highly respectable second with 615 points.


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