Werloc

Andrius Šidlauskas 100m breaststroke 59.36 Qualified with the best time to the European Championship semifinal.

Nearly 11 years ago I was participating in X Factor and they do these video intros before every live show performance, to show how you were preparing, asking questions etc. Somehow, one week it came down to hobbies & I mentioned that I really liked sports and the interviewer asked if I liked basketball and I said nah, my favourite sport is actually biathlon and it went on live TV Low and behold, a few days later after the live I get contacted by a guy from the biathlon federation to do an interview for them and we met up somewhere in the city center, I got interviewed, we talked about biathlon (this was the very first time I met a moving, living person that enjoyed biathlon then). So we kinda kept talking a bit from time to time after that interview about sports and since I knew his name, I found the courage to ask if he was the same Robertas from the forum annnnnnd coincidence - he was :DDDDDDD Nowadays, we talk about sports nearly every day, he is still working as a media liaison for our biathlon federation and is working at COSMA (our best athletics club) too, after having worked for the athletics federation as a liaison for many years too. So I'm still getting a lot of insider tea to this day from him I wouldn't be too surprised if @heywoodu has seen him too at some biathlon event

Same here, I have a 10 year lasting IRL friendship with one user from here that doesn't visit the forum anymore The story on how we met was wild

Perhaps you stepped in to eat at Užupio picerija since you were there? They make this edible basket filled with deep-fried buffalo and regular mozzarella doughnuts, that's pretty sick

Yeah, I walk through here a few times a week

I think that Germany and Great Britain are always eyeing Italy and France and thinking why are they different and why do the juries and televoters enjoy them, whilst rarely showing any appreciation towards GB or GER Of course, GB saw what works after Sam Ryder last year and I think that they did have good intentions with sending Olly. I think one problem with some Eurovision artists is when you make your sexuality your entire identity and it leaks out into the performance as well. I don't really recognise the Years & Years Olly nowadays, seems like an entirely different person. Only his voice sounds similarly at some points.

I respect your disagreement, but at the same time, I trust my knowledge. I had 7 of the 10 juries favourites in my own top 10, I've been following this contest for two decades, since 2019 I've written a lot of songs for our national selection. The Lithuanian jury is mostly comprised of artists, songwriters, producers and radio hosts that I interact with on a daily basis and share a similar philosophy with. I've also written with Silvester before and another of the songwriters behind "Luktelk". I think that with the trajectory that I'm working towards, it wouldn't be too unreal for me to end up in that jury myself one day. A few of my close friends have already had their turn this year and prior years too. I know this may come off as arrogant, but I've literally invested all my life into this industry, it's a topic where I always feel comfortable sharing my thoughts. Adding to that, my entire FB and Instagram is filled with artists, that are mostly talking about Switzerland, Ireland, France and Ukraine, while a few of my regular friends did really enjoy Croatia. Although, there's no denying the fact that Lithuanian jurors gave ten points to Croatia as well, but our country's jury is somewhat known for having a more alternative approach than many other juries.

We could do a quick check on how the past 8 years of Eurovision would've looked if only the jury and only the televoters would've voted. Jury / Televote / Winner 2024 2023 2022 2021 2019 2018 2017 2016 It is clear that neither can work without the other, as the consensus was only reached in 2017. Also, apart from 2019, I would've most likely trusted the jury. I find both Dami Im and Sam Ryder a bit better than both of Ukrainian somewhat politically aided songs. Cesar was definitely better than "Toy" (although my heart lies with other songs that year). 2021's pretty tricky, since I really enjoyed both entries. 2019 was indeed a good collaborative save, because I hated both the jury and the public winner.

Never said juries didn't have flaws. There is a lot of cultural, political voting there too, but the juries definitely balance out the craziness and total randomness of the public vote. I think that second place for Croatia is amazing and that they highly overachieved with this, probably due to there not being many memorable songs this year that people could gravitate towards. Probably even because Finland's "No Rules" didn't get the audience appeal vote and NL's disqualification really helped out Croatia as well, I think, it definitely would've stolen their points more, rather than the Swiss. As for the UK, well, I can only say that the juries judged what was performed yesterday. Perhaps there were some fans of Troye Sivan's "Rush" in the jury. Having been in the music industry for over a decade, I can somewhat predict which performances the juries tend to gravitate towards, because they are my people and I think similarly to them in most of the cases. Although, the UK wouldn't have been in my top 10 if I was selected to be a jury member. I really respect my peers that they weren't scared off by the bold choice of Ireland and actually awarded them more points than the televote. Really really glad they recognised Armenia too. Although, I thought that Serbia and Lithuania might've ended up a bit higher in the jury vote, I believe that Croatia's jury score was somewhat inflated, because jurors might've been worried from last year about the public opinion and felt somewhat hassled to vote for Croatia simply because of their 52% odds. Good time to remind everyone that Kaarija got 60 less points from the jury than Croatia.

It would be an absolute fucking mess just like political elections across the entire world, but ok

Ugh... What did Croatia actually do to have any jury appeal? Outstanding vocals? Nah Outstanding visuals? Nah Catchy song? Depends on who you ask, honestly Crowd love just like Finland last year? Yeah The juries definitely feel the outside pressure and are swayed in their votes, if Croatia wasn't this much hyped by the people from day 1, I am nearly certain that we wouldn't even see them in the top 10 of the jury vote. Kaarijaa at least had delivered a very visually entertaining performance. Maneskin stood out with their freedom and charisma on stage + had a radio friendly entry, that was targeted towards an international market and not just Eurovision. Ring ding daga ding for three minutes is Eurovision just as much as Keiino is and it does not have broad pop appeal, hence, can't really expect to dominate a jury vote, where other musicians tend to gravitate towards solid vocal performances and visual strength. If you actually want to win Eurovision in this day and age, you definitely need to have both the jury and the televote support. You can't just go all in on the televote and expect to destroy everyone around you.

I usually hate the televote a bit more than the jury vote

What do you mean? People are getting points? Where?

On another note, this is one the weakest Eurovisions, and might be the weakest in the last 10 years at least. There are not that many catchy songs at all, that you could listen to on Spotify without watching the performance. A lot of joke entries, more than any other year. There doesn't seem like there's much of a chance to have an iconic winner and I'd be surprised if anybody here blows up internationally, like some other artists had. Swedish production is really really elevating everything here, because it is VERY NICE to look at.

Well, I'll say it. I never understood the hype behind the Croatian entry and I will never understand it. The song does absolutely nothing for me and there are no show elements either. But somehow Europe is going crazy for it. I don't feel a spark from them that other rock performances had before, like Maneskin, Lordi, Mor Ve Otesi and probably many others.

In the dumpster

My personal list: Aaand Estonia, Luxembourg and Spain as honourable mentions, they're growing on me the more I hear them

Did he have prior vocal training of was specifically scouted for this during a karaoke night?

I'm chatting on Instagram with someone from the Lithuanian delegation, it's massive hysteria over there. I feel bad for Sweden and especially for the hosts, that will have to handle so many messes live. Microphones won't be muted fast enough and camera shots won't be panned out quick enough. Many alike will probably protest in some way and what the presenters will say during the jury votes could be unpredictable as well. They're already using cheering tracks during the Israeli performance, so that the boos are somewhat covered up, but tonight is going to be a massive tall on the showrunners that have been doing their absolute best to deliver for us. Sad how quickly we forget that it's supposed to be about music, where we can forget all the shit going down in the world for at least one night.

Surprisingly, didn't help out Poland too much this time. Though, happy for Armenian qualification, it was a breath of fresh air in the second semi-final.

Though I can only imagine that Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia coming back all that once would most likely kill qualification chances for smaller countries like Luxembourg, San-Marino, Malta, Belgium, Denmark, likely even all of the Baltic countries, because of the Balkan block voting, which would be even more of a thing now without the juries in the semis. Although ironically it was those same juries that colluded some years ago

Absolutely glad to not have Malta in the final this year, it was textbook case of "yeah, you can copy my homework, just change a few things" - Spain 2022 Slo Mo What also gave me the vibes that it was textbook plagiarism, was that it took 8 people to write that mess.

Yup, 21 year old Mykolas Alekna just set a new WR in the Discus Throw Don't know how to feel about this, would've been more special in a different location probably

Yeah, I don't know how other people rank and how they decide, but logically thinking, the disco music genre is one of those genres that are not known for huge variation, which is why many disco songs have a lot of things in common with each other. It's not insane to assume that if you liked Italy, you should have felt somewhat keen on Argentina as well. For me, personally, Argentina even had a bit more to offer in that regard. It would've been okay if Argentina scored like less than Italy, but not by a 110 point margin. I can only assume that if this song was sent let's say by the French jury and it was in French, we'd have at least 80-100 points :/ Although we have a long history of songs in Spanish doing well too, so yeah, it's impossible to explain what goes on in the voting processes of all of the juries

Lol, this is actually insane how differently people perceive stuff At the start, I thought that I would not like that song then it drew me in on second 40.