# Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest 2002

Spain was represented at the Eurovision Song Contest 2002 with the song "Europe's Living a Celebration", written by Toni Ten and Xasqui Ten, and performed by Rosa. The Spanish participating broadcaster, Televisión Española (TVE), selected its entry through the first series of the reality television music competition Operación Triunfo. Three artists and songs ultimately qualified to compete in the final of the competition's Eurovision selection show where a public televote exclusively selected "Europe's Living a Celebration" performed by Rosa as the winner, receiving 49.9% of the votes.
As a member of the "Big Four", Spain automatically qualified to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest. Performing in position 5, Spain placed seventh out of the 24 participating countries with 81 points.

## Background

Prior to the 2002 contest, Televisión Española (TVE) had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest representing Spain forty-one times since its first entry in 1961. It has won the contest on two occasions: in 1968 with the song "La, la, la" performed by Massiel and in 1969 with the song "Vivo cantando" performed by Salomé, the latter having won in a four-way tie with France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It has also finished second four times, with "En un mundo nuevo" by Karina in 1971, "Eres tú" by Mocedades in 1973, "Su canción" by Betty Missiego in 1979, and "Vuelve conmigo" by Anabel Conde in 1995. In 2001, it placed sixth with the song "Dile que la quiero" performed by David Civera.
As part of its duties as participating broadcaster, TVE organises the selection of its entry in the Eurovision Song Contest and broadcasts the event in the country. In 2000 and 2001, TVE organised the national final Eurocanción, which featured a competition among several artists and songs. For their 2002 entry, TVE announced in July 2001 that they would organise a reality television singing competition titled Operación Triunfo (similar in format to Big Brother and The Bus) to select both the artist and song that would represent Spain.

## Before Eurovision
### Operación Triunfo 2001

The Spanish entry for the 2002 Eurovision Song Contest was selected through Operación Triunfo, a Spanish reality television music competition consisting of training sixteen contestants in a boarding academy in order to find new singing talent. The first series, also known as Operación Triunfo 2001, took place from 22 October 2001 to 11 February 2002 at the Mediapark Studios in Sant Just Desvern (Barcelona), hosted by Carlos Lozano. The competition was broadcast on La Primera and TVE Internacional. The top three contestants qualified to compete in the Eurovision selection show, Gala Eurovisión, which consisted of three shows on 25 February, 4 March and 11 March 2002. Each contestant performed three candidate songs and the winner was decided exclusively through a public televote. The competing songs and the allocations were announced on 21 February 2002.
Contestant qualified to "Gala Eurovisión"
| Contestant | Age | Residence | Episode of elimination | Place finished (Overall ranking) |
| Rosa | 20 | Granada | Gala Final | 1st |
| Bisbal | 22 | Almería | Gala Final | 2nd |
| Bustamante | 19 | San Vicente de la Barquera | Gala Final | 3rd |
| Chenoa | 26 | Palma | Gala Final | 4th |
| Manu | 26 | Seville | Gala Final | 5th |
| Verónica | 23 | Elche | Gala Final | 6th |
| Nuria | 22 | Nerja | Gala 13 | 7th |
| Gisela | 22 | Barcelona | Gala 12 | 8th |
| Naím | 21 | Premià de Mar | Gala 11 | 9th |
| Àlex | 20 | Vilassar de Mar | Gala 5 / Gala 10 | 10th |
| Alejandro | 23 | Valencia | Gala 8 | 11th |
| Juan | 28 | Madrid | Gala 7 | 12th |
| Natalia | 18 | Sanlúcar de Barrameda | Gala 6 | 13th |
| Javián | 27 | Dos Hermanas | Gala 4 | 14th |
| Mireia | 19 | Vila-seca | Gala 3 | 15th |
| Geno | 19 | Gran Canaria | Gala 2 | 16th |

#### Song selection

The song selection round of Gala Eurovisión consisted of two rounds of voting. In the first round which took place on 25 February 2002, an in-studio jury eliminated one song per contestant. The six members of the in-studio jury were Pilar Tabares (music director of TVE), Narcís Rebollo (CEO of Vale Music), José Luis Uribarri (television presenter and director, commentator of the Eurovision Song Contest for Spain), Marcos Llunas (singer and composer, represented Spain in the 1997 contest), Juan Luis Ayllón Piquero (Eurovision expert) and Daniel Aragay Esteban (Eurovision expert). In the second round which took place on 4 March 2002, a public televote eliminated an additional song per contestant. In addition to the performances of the competing entries, the guest performer in the first show was Lenny Kravitz, while the guest performer in the second show was Operación Triunfo 2001 contestant Natalia.
First Round – 25 February 2002 :
| Draw | Artist | Song | Songwriter(s) | Result |
| 1 | Bustamante | "Urgente" | Javi Mota, Lidia Guevara, Sergio Medrano | Eliminated |
| 2 | Bisbal | "El alma en pie" | José Abraham | Advanced |
| 3 | Rosa | "Un sueño especial" | Toni Ten, Xasqui Ten | Advanced |
| 4 | Bustamante | "Más de mil noches" | Jesús María Pérez, Amaya Martínez | Advanced |
| 5 | Rosa | "Hay que vivir" | Rubén Blades | Eliminated |
| 6 | Bisbal | "Corazón Latino" | Jordi Cubino | Advanced |
| 7 | Bustamante | "La magia del corazón" | David DeMaría, Pablo Pinilla, David Santisteban | Advanced |
| 8 | Rosa | "Europe's Living a Celebration" | Toni Ten, Xasqui Ten | Advanced |
| 9 | Bisbal | "Miénteme" | José Gaviria, Ossa Bernardo, Ximena Muñoz | Eliminated |
Second Round – 4 March 2002 :
| Draw | Artist | Song | Televote | Result |
| 1 | Bisbal | "El alma en pie" | 18% | Eliminated |
| 2 | Bustamante | "Más de mil noches" | 35% | Eliminated |
| 3 | Rosa | "Un sueño especial" | 30% | Eliminated |
| 4 | Bisbal | "Corazón Latino" | 82% | Advanced |
| 5 | Bustamante | "La magia del corazón" | 65% | Advanced |
| 6 | Rosa | "Europe's Living a Celebration" | 70% | Advanced |

#### Final

The final of Gala Eurovisión took place on 11 March 2002. The winner, "Europe's Living a Celebration" performed by Rosa, was selected exclusively through a public televote which ran between 4 and 11 March 2002. In addition to the performances of the competing entries, guest performers included the Pet Shop Boys and the eliminated contestants of Operación Triunfo 2001.
Final – 11 March 2002 :
| Draw | Artist | Song | Televote | Place |
| 1 | Bustamante | "La magia del corazón" | 17.3% | 3 |
| 2 | Bisbal | "Corazón latino" | 32.8% | 2 |
| 3 | Rosa | "Europe's Living a Celebration" | 49.9% | 1 |

## At Eurovision

As a member of the "Big Four", Spain automatically qualified to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest 2002 on 25 May 2002. During the allocation draw on 9 November 2001, Spain was drawn to perform in position 5, following the entry from Greece and before the entry from Croatia. At the contest, Rosa was joined on stage by five backing vocalists who were contestants from Operación Triunfo 2001 David Bisbal, David Bustamante, Chenoa, Gisela (who would go on to represent Andorra in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008) and Geno Machado, and Spain placed seventh at the conclusion of the final scoring 81 points.
In Spain, the show was broadcast on La Primera with commentary by José Luis Uribarri and on Radio 1 with commentary by Nieves Herrero and José María de Juana. TVE appointed Anne Igartiburu as its spokesperson to announce the Spanish votes during the final; the Spanish votes consisted of 50 percent public televoting and 50 percent from a jury deliberation.

### Voting

Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Spain and awarded by Spain in the contest. The nation awarded its 12 points to Latvia in the contest.