Vektor

The individual events were kinda disappointing for us so I hope we will win at least 2 medals in the team events. Obviously our men's sabre team should at the very least win a medal today.

Hungary lost its top rated chess player, Rapport will compete under the flag of Romania at the Candidates tournament. Shame on the Hungarian federation who never provided the kind of budget for Rapport that he needed on the top level. And fuck every Hungarian nationalist asshole who makes an enemy out of him now. I hope he will win the Candidates and prove how much the country lost by not supporting him.

The bid failed. The Hungarian government decided to not support the hosting of the event due to the war and the economic crisis. Orbán has been very supportive of sport events in Hungary, so this is the first time in the last 12 years that he stopped a bid. Probably a sign of how deeply the Hungarian economy is fucked.

Slalom is more TV friendly than Sprint, which is why they added two more slalom events while they removed the two 200m sprint events. So yeah, there's no way that they are dropping slalom.

lol, called it last year.

It's part of the game. Some countries "always" send songs that appeal to the juries while other countries send songs that appeal to televoters. The goal is to send the kind of song that appeal to both the juries and the televoters because you can't win if you are far behind in one half of the votes. I think it actually creates a nice balance. If it would be 100% juries the contest would be full of boring ballads and with 100% televotes it would be the 2000s all over again. I think the quality of the contest increased when they introduced the 50/50 split, the contest is still fun but it's not all about who can impress the televoters more with their great staging/show.

Yeah, I think EBU should find a better solution to replace jury points in similar cases, but as far as these cheating countries concerned... good riddance! They won't be missed, just like how countries such as Turkey, Hungary, Russia and Belarus aren't missed for different reasons. Only those countries should participate that respect this contest and its values. And I am pretty sure that the six countries playing the victim card isn't working for them, the core audience of the contest doesn't seem to be on their side. The cheating is way too obvious. Also, I find it truly baffling that countries like Poland and Romania pulled this shit right at a time when Europe should show unity at international events. Of all the countries they should know better than to do this during these times.

Also, this is exactly the kind of attitude that Russians showed when they couldn't get away with their cheating in sport events. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. It's not the fault of Western countries when you do something as silly as trying to rig a song contest for your own benefits.

Christ, it's not about Ukraine, this isn't about their voting in the final. The 6 countries got banned from the jury vote in the entire contest because they tried to cheat in their semi-final. And no, this isn't like the Greece/Cyprus 12 points exchange. This was a very deliberate effort from 6 countries to alter the results of the semi-final and you have to be very naïve to think that the jury members simply "liked the same songs". I think EBU should have disqualified all 6 countries from the contest. Just throw Poland, Azerbaijan and Romania out of the final for cheating and replace them with 3 countries that didn't try to cheat. There should be real consequences, these countries went way too far.

It is what it is, we can add it to list of things Putin ruined with his stupid war. Eurovision was never truly political on this scale before but I can't really be angry at anyone except Putin and Russia. People can't turn their brains off while watching a TV show that features a popular vote involving countries when we are the closest to an all-out war between Europe and Russia we have ever been since World War II.

I think they will just give it to Sweden, regardless of who's the runner-up. Stockholm already offered to host the 2023 contest. Personally I would prefer Poland as a replacement host because they are closely tied to Ukraine, but they do have their anti-LGBT stuff going on so it might not such a great idea.

The running order seems to indicate that Ukraine has this in the bag, they got the perfect spot from the producers. I was skeptical of the hype but I guess this win really is happening. Poland got a great spot which seems to indicate that they won SF2, so maybe they have a chance to surprise everyone. The UK also has a "winning spot" but I doubt that they will get enough points from the televote.

seems to be the real deal this time, people are really positive about how the song turned out in the live performance yesterday. I want to see the performance myself but if this is true, they can win the jury vote on Saturday. Maybe we will finally see the United Kingdom in the Top3 for the first time in 20 years.

I watched the SF2 recap, I think it's harder to predict than the first semi. I will go with...

New polling shows that the support for Orbán grew even more in Hungary after the election. And the same can be said about the pro-Russian neonazi party which now overtook all the left-wing parties and it's the second most popular party in Hungary behind Fidesz. The polling shows that the support of parties with Western ideologies are shrinking even below what was considered their lowest point. I think it's pretty clear which side won the "cultural war" in Hungary for the next few decades. I don't like it, but it is what it is, this is the direction this country will be on for most of my life. And it can get worse. Let's hope that Orbán's system will stay intact because if it won't, I am pretty sure the neonazies will be the ones who will take charge after Orbán, not the left-wing.

I think or won the semi, those were the two performances that worked the most in my opinion. But I am not sure about Portugal, it's a dark horse because it's an unusual ESC entry.

8 out 10. Not bad considering that I didn't pay much attention this year. and out, and in.

I haven't followed the contest and the rehearsals anywhere near as close as I did in previous years, so I don't really have a Top10. But I am curious about how much of the qualifiers I can get right just by listening to the YouTube recap. This will most likely be a failure, but hey, I am curious.

I think they were only polling people about the "important nations" + Ukraine. I would say that Hungarians either like or neutral about Greece. We don't have any shared history, plus I think Hungarians didn't care about the financial crisis stuff. So yeah, neutral, maybe positive because it's well-liked holiday destination.

I don't understand what the bookies and the people who bet are smoking, being the biggest favorite ever to win ESC seems so wrong to me. I mean, we just had TISC and Ukraine wasn't even Top20. There is always some political voting at these contests, but ultimately people vote for the songs. And I think Ukraine simply doesn't have a winning song. But maybe I will see it differently during the contest, I don't know. Based on the rehearsal clips I would say that is winning the televote again and they will be stopped by the jury like in 2019. I think either or are winning this. But as I said, maybe once I see the full performances I will change my mind.

New polling shows something among the supporters of the ruling party in Hungary that I am sure China likes. Favorability polling of Fidesz voters (by a trustworthy pollster) 57% 56% 52% 51% 43% 33% 24% So the US pretty much lost the propaganda war in Hungary, Orbán successfully turned the Ukrainians into the bad guys among his voters. Obviously the entire Hungarian society doesn't show the same result, just Orbán's voters, but as far as Hungary concerned, only Orbán's voters matter because his party had a huge election victory. And Russia is even more liked among younger Orbán voters, only old Orbán voters dislike Russia. And what's even more important: the future for China here looks rather bright. The Americans are losing Hungary.

Maybe. Maybe not.

So I went to Stage 3 yesterday, I was at one of the turns before Lake Balaton in a village. Thankfully the weather wasn't too bad and I managed to find a place later in Keszthely to watch the finish. It was nice to see Lake Balaton again, I haven't been there since COVID started.

I would like to thank everyone who made this contest possible. @Sindo for maintaining the site, @OlympicIRL for their guidance, @dcro for their contributions, @vinipereira for the logo of the contest, @mrv86 for the draw tables. @hckošice @Cinnamon Bun @Cobi @Wumo for their participation in the draw. And of course I would like to thank all the jury members who participated in the contest. And as the jury member of Hungary I would also like to thank everyone who voted for our song. I never expected this song to reach the 6th place, that was the most surprising result of the contest for me. Thank you!

Spain 12 My first TISC participation was the 2019 Open contest and guess what TISC meme originated from that contest? I guess the prophecy was right, Spain had to win the contest which was hosted by me. Joking aside, Spain collected 160 points, 4 x 12 pts from , 1 x 11 pts from and 3 x 10 pts from . There are no questions about which was the strongest nation of this contest. I would like to congratulate @Cobi, Spain was long overdue for this kind of success in TISC. And now we shall end the contest the way every song contest should, with the winning song. Goodbye 2022 Annual Contest, Goodbye Hungary, see ya at the next contest, hopefully in Czech Republic, and then next year in Spain! Tanxugueiras - TERRA