Analysis: 11 May 2006

Just one week to go, and the penultimate update to the Jury Vote 2006 manages to throw up a few surprises.

Romania's Mihai manages to maintain his lead on both the overall and Final-only Leader Boards, but the big new this week is Belgium's Kate Ryan leapfrogging Greece's Anna Vissi to reoccupy the 2nd place slot that she last held quite a few weeks ago. However, Romania's vote continues to hold up, and it will take some effort for Kate to overtake Mihai during the next seven days. Despite Anna dropping a place, the Greek song remains a strong contender, and could yet reclaim the runner-up position in time for next week's final update.

Down in 4th, Bosnia's Hari continues to pile on the points, and has now nearly caught up with the top 3. It would certainly be a big surprise if Hari failed to qualify for the Final, and his gentle song does make a pleasant contrast to some of the more noisy and over-choreographed efforts that we have to sit through. At this point, I would still say that Bosnia is my main tip for Eurovision victory in 2006.

Further down, the top ten of the overall and Final Leader Boards is much the same as usual, with Turkey, Russia, Sweden, Germany, UK and Norway all looking like they will do well. It's also been a good week for Croatia and FYR Macedonia, both climbing into the overall top ten, but just missing out on a top ten placing in the Final.

Down at the bottom of the overall Leader Board, poor Polina from Belarus hold on to 'nul points' for the third successive week, joined now by Andorra's Jenny. Bulgaria's Mariana Popova, stuck on 0 last week, now moves off the bottom courtesy of 4 points from Germany.

The eagle-eyed among you may have spotted that Switzerland appears not to have awarded any points this week. This is correct, and is simply the result of there currently being no valid votes from anybody in Switzerland. If any valid Swiss votes are received over the next seven days, then it will be possible for the Swiss jury to give points in a week's time - points, indeed, that could be crucial to the final result.

Last week I suggested that things were looking dodgy for Armenia, Cyprus and Poland in the Semi Final, and sure enough, all three countries have dropped points and positions over the last week. Poland and Cyprus hang on in 8th and 9th respectively, but Armenia's Andre has dropped out of the top ten for the first time since the Jury Vote 2006 launched. He now sits in 12th, and seem unlikely to make up the ground needed to qualify. In his place, we welcome Iceland's Silvia Night to the top ten for the first time, leapfrogging Slovenia's Anžej Dežan who must content himself with a frustrating 11th place for the second week in a row. However, with just 6 points separating Poland in 8th from Slovenia in 11th, it does appear that those last few places in the Final are really still up for grabs. Meanwhile, Finland's Lordi - who returned to the top ten last week after dropping out the week before - appear to have consolidated their position, and now appear a safe qualifier in 7th.

On the Final Leader Board, the main change is therefore the disappearance of Armenia's Andre and his replacement by Silvia Night. Sadly for Silvia, she can only make a relatively unimpressive appearance in 20th place, by far the lowest of any of the ten qualifiers. While she picks up enough points (from 18 of the other countries) to finish in the top ten of the Semi Final, it's notable that very few juries award her high marks - she gets low points from lots of countries, rather than high points from fewer ones. Faced with greater competition in the Final, 'Congratulations' drops out of many of the individual juries' top tens, thereby accounting for her much lower score.

Next week's update - on Thursday afternoon, prior to the Semi Final - will be the last one. However, we can expect some more surprises, with a high number of votes expected over the next week. Soult.com Eurovision usually triples its number of visitors in the week leading up to the Contest, hitting 30,000 page views a day. So, come back on Thursday afternoon to see what effect, if any, this has had on each country's ultimate position!

Graham Soult
11 May 2006

Read previous analysis article (3 May 2006)

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