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Azerbaijan is among Top Three in Eurovision Song Contest

17 May 2009 00:54 (UTC +04:00)

Born in Minsk, the 23-year-old, who celebrated his birthday this week, took an early lead with more 12 points than any other countries.

Norway is followed by Yohanna from Iceland with 218 points and Azerbaijanâ€™s AySel & Arash who scraped together 207 points.

Azerbaijan got 10 points from Czech Republic, 8 from Sweden, 1 from France, 6 from Israel, 7 from Russia, 6 from Montenegro, 8 from Bulgaria, 5 from Lithuania, 8 from Greece, 3 from Bosnia and Herzegovina, 10 from Ukraine, 12 from Turkey, 4 from Albania, 4 from Serbia, 8 from Cyprus, 6 from Poland, 10 from the Netherlands, 7 from Estonia, 10 from Croatia, 4 from Romania, 8 from Denmark, 10 from Moldova, 1 from Armenia and 10 from Hungary.

Azerbaijan gave its 12 points to Turkey.

25 countries competed tonight with 20 progressing from the two semi-finals, while Russia, France, Germany, Britain and Spain automatically secured their place in the final.
Dima Bilan, who won the 2008 Eurovision competition held in Serbia, performed his victorious "Believe" R&B-style song before the competition proper kicked off with the Lithuanian entry â€” a piano ballad featuring various pyrotechnics.
The winner of the competition is picked by a combination of telephone voting and official juries from national broadcasters in the 42 nations that originally took part.
For the first time, voting in the final was split between televoting and panels of musical experts, which was supposed to reduce the incidence of predictable and neighbourly votes.
The complete results are as follows:
1. Norway - 387 points
2. Iceland - 218 points
3. Azerbaijan - 207 points
4. Turkey - 177 points
5. United Kingdom - 173 points
6. Estonia - 129 points
7. Greece - 120 points
8. France - 107 points
9. Bosnia & Herzegovina - 106 points
10. Armenia - 92 points
11. Russia - 91 points
12. Ukraine - 76 points
13. Denmark - 74 points
14. Moldova - 69 points
15. Portugal - 57 points
16. Israel - 53 points
17. Albania - 48 points
18. Croatia - 45 points
19. Romania - 40 points
20. Germany - 35 points
21. Sweden - 33 points
22. Malta - 31 points
23. Lithuania - 23 points
24. Spain - 23 points
25. Finland - 22 points