Alexander Rybak victory Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018
2018: Eurovision
In January 2018, it was revealed that Rybak would be taking part in the Norwegian national selection Melodi Grand Prix 2018, to represent Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal, with the song "That's How You Write a Song". The song initially received very mixed reviews. Rybak stated that he wanted to take part mostly for pleasure, rather than wanting to win the competition, stating that Norwegian singer Jahn Teigen, who participated fourteen times in the Norwegian selection and won three times, was his inspiration.Rybak was not the bookmakers and experts' favourite to win the selection, but topped several public polls ahead of the competition. To his own surprise and to the surprise of both of the presenters, Rybak won the selection. During the show, Rybak topped four international juries – Russia, Estonia, North Macedonia and Czechia – more than any other contestant. Rybak proceeded to the last four, where he first beat Aleksander Walmann in a duel and then proceeded to the final duel with singer Rebecca, which he also won.
After the show, several news outlets claimed that Norwegian broadcaster NRK had favourised Rybak, putting him last in the running order. NRK denied this, pointing to the voting statistics that showed that Rybak had won with a large margin. He won his first duel with 94.3% of the votes and his final duel by 71% of the votes, receiving a total of 306,393 votes, the third-highest number of votes an entry ever reached in Melodi Grand Prix history.
Rybak was drawn to perform first in the second semi-final on 10 May and finished first overall, becoming the first-ever Eurovision performer to win two semi-finals after he also won the second semi-final in 2009. In the final, on 12 May 2018, Rybak performed seventh in the running order and finished in fifteenth place, receiving a top jury score from Italy.
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