Vektor

TEAM CHALLENGE Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Gold Medal Match 1st Győr Rivers 50 1st 1st 1st 28 11 5 11 2nd Fehérvár Saints 38 2nd 2nd 2nd 10 0 20 8 3rd Tatabánya Falcons 28 3rd 3rd 9 12 0 7 4th Szombathely Romans 24 4th 4th 7 5 12 5 5th Budapest Capitals 23 5th 12 11 0 0 6th Miskolc Cavers 23 6th 2 4 12 7 7th Eger Heroes 14 7th 8 6 0 8th Kecskemét Goats 12 0 9 0 3 9th Debrecen Flowers 7 0 0 7 0 10th Pécs Scholars 3 0 0 3 0 Repechage 1 Repechage 2 Bronze Medal Race 1st 1st 3rd 2nd 2nd 4th 3rd 3rd 5th 4th 6th 5th

AFTER 3/39 JURIES 1 Spain 9 28 ↓7 21 Denmark 5 ↑6 2 China 12 20 ↓7 21 Kazakhstan 5 ↑17 3 Malta 10 12 23 Slovenia 4 4 ↑13 4 Mexico 8 12 ↓5 24 Ireland 3 ↓3 5 Argentina 12 ↓1 24 Moldova 3 3 ↓3 5 New Zealand 12 ↓6 26 Poland 2 ↓3 7 Croatia 11 ↓4 27 Brazil 0 ↑16 7 Greece 11 11 ↓4 27 Bulgaria 0 ↓3 7 Turkey 11 ↓4 27 Canada 0 ↓4 10 Colombia 10 ↓4 27 Czech Republic 0 ↑6 11 Netherlands 5 9 ↓4 27 Great Britain 0 ↓5 12 Hungary 9 ↓4 27 India 0 ↓1 13 Italy 2 8 ↓4 27 Indonesia 0 ↓6 14 Romania 8 ↓4 27 Portugal 0 ↑7 15 Finland 6 7 ↓4 27 Serbia 0 ↓6 16 France 7 ↓4 27 Slovakia 0 ↓6 16 Germany 7 ↓4 27 Sweden 0 ↑7 16 Israel 7 7 ↓4 27 Tunisia 0 ↓7 19 United States 6 ↓4 27 Ukraine 0 ↓4 20 Lithuania 1 5 NEXT JURY: Bulgaria and are the only nations to get points from all 3 juries so far. But one is getting much more points than the other. Spain already has 3 Top5 placements. Now we will visit out first Balkan country of the day: Bulgaria. @Federer91 should post their votes now.

Yeah, that would be very annoying. But I used Excel and Python to generate the scoreboards, so it shouldn't take too long to correct any mistakes.

TEAM CHALLENGE Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Gold Medal Match 1st Győr Rivers 35 1st 1st 1st 19 0 5 11 2nd Fehérvár Saints 26 2nd 2nd 2nd 10 0 8 8 3rd Budapest Capitals 23 3rd 3rd 12 11 0 0 4th Tatabánya Falcons 21 4th 4th 9 12 0 0 5th Szombathely Romans 16 5th 7 4 2 5 6th Miskolc Cavers 13 6th 2 0 4 7 7th Eger Heroes 12 7th 6 6 0 8th Kecskemét Goats 4 0 4 0 0 9th Pécs Scholars 3 0 0 3 0 10th Debrecen Flowers 1 0 0 1 0 Repechage 1 Repechage 2 Bronze Medal Race 1st 1st 3rd 2nd 2nd 4th 3rd 3rd 5th 4th 6th 5th

AFTER 2/39 JURIES ↑2 1 Spain 9 19 ↓9 20 Poland 2 ↓1 2 Argentina 12 ↓10 22 Finland 1 ↑11 2 New Zealand 12 12 ↓10 23 Brazil 0 ↓2 4 Croatia 11 ↓10 23 Bulgaria 0 ↑9 4 Turkey 11 11 ↓10 23 Canada 0 ↑7 6 Colombia 10 10 ↓10 23 Czech Republic 0 ↓3 7 Hungary 9 ↓10 23 Great Britain 0 ↓3 8 China 8 ↓10 23 Greece 0 ↑5 8 Romania 8 8 ↓10 23 India 0 ↓4 10 France 7 ↓10 23 Indonesia 0 ↑3 10 Germany 7 7 ↓10 23 Israel 0 ↓5 12 Italy 6 ↓10 23 Moldova 0 ↑1 12 United States 6 6 ↓10 23 Portugal 0 ↓6 14 Denmark 5 ↓10 23 Serbia 0 ↓1 14 Kazakhstan 5 5 ↓10 23 Slovakia 0 ↓6 16 Lithuania 1 4 ↓10 23 Slovenia 0 ↓8 17 Mexico 4 ↓10 23 Sweden 0 ↓4 17 Netherlands 4 4 ↓10 23 Tunisia 0 ↓6 19 Ireland 3 3 ↓10 23 Ukraine 0 ↓7 20 Malta 2 2 NEXT JURY: Poland Huh, the Scoreboard can show the changes in the order? What kind of a magic is this? Anyway, let's focus on something more important: Spain is leading the contest for the first time in the history of TISC!!! But it's still very early, who knows what comes next. I mean, we actually do know what comes next: Poland! It's @rybak's turn to reveal their votes at 09:54 CEST.

Tunisia 1st New Zealand New Zealand 12 Turkey 11 Colombia 10 Spain 9 Romania 8 Germany 7 United States 6 Kazakhstan 5 Netherlands 4 Ireland 3 Malta 2 Lithuania 1

Tunisia 2nd Turkey Turkey 11 Colombia 10 Spain 9 Romania 8 Germany 7 United States 6 Kazakhstan 5 Netherlands 4 Ireland 3 Malta 2 Lithuania 1

Tunisia 3rd Colombia 4th Spain 5th Romania Colombia 10 Spain 9 Romania 8 Germany 7 United States 6 Kazakhstan 5 Netherlands 4 Ireland 3 Malta 2 Lithuania 1

@OlympicIRL passed his knowledge down to me.

TEAM CHALLENGE Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Gold Medal Match 1st Tatabánya Falcons 21 1st 1st 1st 9 12 0 0 2nd Miskolc Cavers 13 2nd 2nd 2nd 2 0 4 7 3rd Budapest Capitals 11 3rd 3rd 0 11 0 0 4th Győr Rivers 10 4th 4th 10 0 0 0 5th Fehérvár Saints 8 5th 0 0 8 0 6th Szombathely Romans 8 6th 0 3 0 5 7th Eger Heroes 6 7th 6 0 0 8th Debrecen Flowers 1 0 0 1 0 9th Kecskemét Goats 0 0 0 0 0 10th Pécs Scholars 0 0 0 0 0 Repechage 1 Repechage 2 Bronze Medal Race 1st 1st 3rd 2nd 2nd 4th 3rd 3rd 5th 4th 6th 5th

AFTER 1/39 JURIES 1 Argentina 12 12 13 India 0 2 Croatia 11 11 13 Indonesia 0 3 Spain 10 10 13 Ireland 0 4 Hungary 9 9 13 Israel 0 5 China 8 8 13 Kazakhstan 0 6 France 7 7 13 Malta 0 7 Italy 6 6 13 Moldova 0 8 Denmark 5 5 13 Netherlands 0 9 Mexico 4 4 13 New Zealand 0 10 Lithuania 3 3 13 Portugal 0 11 Poland 2 2 13 Romania 0 12 Finland 1 1 13 Serbia 0 13 Brazil 0 13 Slovakia 0 13 Bulgaria 0 13 Slovenia 0 13 Canada 0 13 Sweden 0 13 Colombia 0 13 Tunisia 0 13 Czech Republic 0 13 Turkey 0 13 Germany 0 13 Ukraine 0 13 Great Britain 0 13 United States 0 13 Greece 0 NEXT JURY: Tunisia Argentina takes the very early lead for the first time in 5 years. They last led the contest in the 2017 Open edition. But is it a curse to start the contest in the first position? We will find out soon enough. We will call Tunisia now, @amen09 please reveal your votes.

The First Session Begins Here we go, in a few minutes the first votes of the contest will start coming in. 9 nations will vote between 09:30 and 11:18. And don't forget, this is only just the beginning, the first few countries never decide the contest. Voting Order Voting Time Host Local Session 1 (09:30-11:18) 1 New Zealand 09:30 19:30 2 Tunisia 09:42 08:42 3 Poland 09:54 09:54 4 Bulgaria 10:06 11:06 5 Spain 10:18 10:18 6 India 10:30 14:00 7 Colombia 10:42 03:42 8 Germany 10:54 10:54 9 Hungary 11:06 11:06 AFTER 0/39 JURIES 1 Argentina 0 1 Kazakhstan 0 1 Brazil 0 1 Lithuania 0 1 Bulgaria 0 1 Malta 0 1 Canada 0 1 Mexico 0 1 China 0 1 Moldova 0 1 Colombia 0 1 Netherlands 0 1 Croatia 0 1 New Zealand 0 1 Czech Republic 0 1 Poland 0 1 Denmark 0 1 Portugal 0 1 Finland 0 1 Romania 0 1 France 0 1 Serbia 0 1 Germany 0 1 Slovakia 0 1 Great Britain 0 1 Slovenia 0 1 Greece 0 1 Spain 0 1 Hungary 0 1 Sweden 0 1 India 0 1 Tunisia 0 1 Indonesia 0 1 Turkey 0 1 Ireland 0 1 Ukraine 0 1 Israel 0 1 United States 0 1 Italy 0 NEXT JURY: New Zealand We will call Wellington first! @Wanderer please start the voting at 09:30 CEST.

The Grand Final Will Start in 30 Minutes I hope you all had a good night's rest because we have a long day ahead of us. 39 nations will decide who will be the winner of this year's annual edition. The first session will start in about 30 minutes.

The Scoreboard There's one thing left to do before we say goodbye for today and that is the reveal of the Scoreboard. So here's our brand new scoreboard, I hope you like it because you will see it a lot tomorrow. AFTER 0/39 JURIES 1 Argentina 0 1 Kazakhstan 0 1 Brazil 0 1 Lithuania 0 1 Bulgaria 0 1 Malta 0 1 Canada 0 1 Mexico 0 1 China 0 1 Moldova 0 1 Colombia 0 1 Netherlands 0 1 Croatia 0 1 New Zealand 0 1 Czech Republic 0 1 Poland 0 1 Denmark 0 1 Portugal 0 1 Finland 0 1 Romania 0 1 France 0 1 Serbia 0 1 Germany 0 1 Slovakia 0 1 Great Britain 0 1 Slovenia 0 1 Greece 0 1 Spain 0 1 Hungary 0 1 Sweden 0 1 India 0 1 Tunisia 0 1 Indonesia 0 1 Turkey 0 1 Ireland 0 1 Ukraine 0 1 Israel 0 1 United States 0 1 Italy 0 NEXT JURY: New Zealand So, do you like it? And look at that, we are all first. We are all winners! For now at least. But there will only be one winner tomorrow. So please, joins us tomorrow at 9:30 CEST for the Grand Final of our contest! This concludes the Opening Ceremony, thank you all for joining us!

Shhh... here's the next bottle of pálinka.

Closing Act The time has come for the final act of the ceremony. It was a hard decision to choose from the various great Hungarian singers to end the ceremony, and that's why I didn't choose any of them. Instead let me introduce something a bit different. There's a Hungarian shadow theater group called Attraction, you may have heard of them when they won Britain's Got Talent in 2013. They rose to fame when they performed at the 2012 Hungarian Olympic Oath Ceremony, so I thought that performance would be appropriate to close on now that we are getting close to the 10 year anniversary of those Summer Games. The London Games were kinda special to me for various reasons, so with these final moments of the ceremony I would also like to remember the great times many of us had during those 16 days. Attraction Shadow Group

The Oaths To ensure fair play for all, the official oaths will now be taken by the representatives of the competitors, the jury members and the hosts. Competitors' Oath Kateryna Pavlenko, Ukraine In the name of all competitors, I promise that we shall take part in this Contest, respecting and abiding by the rules that govern TISC - committing ourselves to a competition that values respect and the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of music and the honor of our nations! Jury Members' Oath @hckošice, Slovakia In the name of all the jury members, I promise that we shall adjudicate in our deliberations at this Contest with complete impartiality, respecting and abiding by the rules which govern TISC in the true spirit of sportsmanship! Hosts' Oath @Vektor, Hungary I promise that I shall organize this Contest, respecting and abiding by the rules that govern TISC - committing myself to overseeing a competition that values respect and promotes the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of music and the honor of our nations!

Prayer The Opening Ceremony shouldn’t end without mentioning a certain tragic event that is currently happening in one of our neighboring countries, Ukraine. We can’t stay silent when Russia invaded a sovereign country. I am a citizen of a country that may not take a clear stance, but there’s one thing that every Hungarian agrees on: the bloodshed must end. We are one of the peoples of the Carpathian Basin, everyone living here knowns what is the cost of territorial disputes and of hatred towards various ethnicities. We have left our historic disputes behind because everyone living here, Austrians, Croatians, Serbians, Slovakians, Slovenians, Romanians, Ukrainians and Hungarians have learned that bloodshed will never be the solution to our problems, we have to live in peace. Hopefully the people living East of Ukraine will finally learn this lesson instead of chasing their dreams of a large empire while they kill their own brothers and sisters for nothing. What you will hear now is not a wartime prayer. It’s a prayer of the working men and women after a long day of work and it’s appropriate at any time. It’s a Csángó prayer, they are a Hungarian ethnic group living in Western Moldavia. So let us now pray for better, peaceful days to come. Mária Petrás - Esti ima

The Host City of Contest: Szeged We did it! We are finally in Szeged! And you know what we deserve? A proper intro to our hosting city. You know what they say, steal from the best, and this is exactly what we will do. Here’s an intro to Szeged, inspired by the title sequence of Game of Thrones where you can see the various sights of the city, including a certain building that should be familiar to you by now. We are next to the Serbian border now, in one of our largest cities, Szeged, the home of around 160 thousand people. The home of Hungarian canoeing, the home of the handball club Pick Szeged. And while it has a new large arena where we could have had our contest, I have decided that Dóm Square is the best place for TISC, the venue for the largest open-air theater in Hungary. Besides the Dóm you can visit the Reök Palace and its famous confectionery. And before someone gets very angry at me for never mentioning it, Szeged has its own large river, the Tisza. The Tisza is the second largest river of Hungary and Hungarian canoeing wouldn’t exist without it as we know it today. The water that we see at Maty-ér during the canoe sprint even comes from Tisza. But let’s not get sidetracked now with some sport fun facts, it’s time to back to our venue for the last few moments of the Opening Ceremony

The Journey Ends All trips must come to end at some point. I mean, you need to catch some sleep before we start the Grand Final tomorrow, the Opening Ceremony can’t go on forever! But before we arrive to Szeged, there’s one more performance you should listen to. Bea Palya is the most successful Hungarian artist of TISC with her 4th place at the 2019 open contest. We will listen to her song Hazatalálok én, which means “I will find my home”. And indeed, we will very soon find our home of the contest, Szeged. Bea Palya - Hazatalálok én

On the Hungarian National Blue Trail Ópusztaszer This isn’t exactly on the trail but I have to mention the Ópusztaszer National Heritage Park. It’s an open-air museum dedicated to celebrate Hungarian history, most notably the Hungarian conquest. The museum’s most well-known exhibit is the Feszty Panorama, which is titled Arrival of the Hungarians. It’s a large circular panoramic painting which depicts the beginning of the conquest. It’s a sight to behold just for its sheer size. Ópusztaszer

On the Hungarian National Blue Trial Hortobágy Technically we are still on the trail, just not on its main line, because, as I said earlier, there’s the Great Plain hiking trail, which is part of the Blue Trail circle around the country. If you thought that the journey around the mountains were a bit flat because Hungary doesn’t have large mountains like the Alps, well… you haven’t seen flat until the you visit the Great Plain. There’s literally nothing here to obscure the view, it’s just flat nothingness. Here you can find the Hortobágy National Park where the Great Plain is preserved as it always was, the land of the betyárs (Hungarian bandits) and the pastoral lifestyle. If you want to make a Hungarian western movie, this is definitely the place to shoot it. Nine-arched Bridge at Hortobágy Heron well, a symbol of the region

On the Hungarian National Blue Trail Füzér and Hollóháza The Blue Trail ends in the Zemplén Mountains at Hollóháza. But first we arrive at, you guessed it, another castle. The Füzér Castle. It’s 800 years old and it was renovated a few years, which means that it’s a great condition and looks beautiful. After the castle there’s one big climb left to the top of Nagy-Milic. We are literally next to Kosice now, which is only 30 kilometers away. We arrive in the small village of Hollóháza, where a little momument welcomes us. But this isn’t the end of our journey, Szeged is still far away, it’s time to cross the Great Plain! Füzér Castle Blue Trail Monument at Hollóháza

On the Hungarian National Blue Trail Aggtelek and the Baradla-Domica Cave System We are now at the border between Hungary and Slovakia. Say hello to @hckošice, we are only 74 kilometers away from Kosice. So what do we do now? Go inside a cave and hopefully we won’t get lost. We can enter the Baradla-Domica cave system to see its vast stalactite caverns. The system is 25 kilometers long and you can visit it all year long to explore it. It even has a concert hall. Yes, there are concerts inside this cave. You may have noticed that this cave system has a Hungarian and a Slovakian name. It’s because they were known as two separate cave systems until a connection between the two was found. This means that you can cross the border between Hungary and Slovakia in a natural cave. Back in the old days there were actual border patrols inside the cave, you can find signs of it to this day. A team of journalists and cavers went down and crossed the border a few years ago. They found the border stone, plus some Soviet era stuff like old landlines. It's time to write a heist story about this cave! Hungarian border stone in the cave system

Remembering a Historic Moment It’s time for our next break and I would like to use this opportunity to share a moment with you. Our most well-known folk song is Tavaszi szél vizet áraszt (Spring wind floods water) and a lot of artists had their own covers of it over the years. But one is above all other. Queen had their concert in Budapest in 1986, which was a landmark event in the history of Hungarian music right before the fall of the Soviet Union. And Freddie Mercury prepared with something special for this concert, he sang Tavaszi szél in front of tens of thousand of Hungarians. Let us now remember this moment. Queen - Tavaszi szél vizet áraszt