Federer91

Western Europe totally ignoring Russia and gushing over Australia, noone saw that comming.....

Riggage almost confirmed

The Nordic juries...

The Australia pandering begins...

Sooo dragged, get on with the votes.....

Poli standing next to the hosts and Timberlake. Go for the placement

Sergey was awesome.

Yeahhh Cyprus

Let's hope many people take a big bathroom and skip Australia.

Francesca very good.

Close, but Timberlake

Got to save time for Justin and the other 10 interval acts.

Let the EBU/SVT riggage begin!

Good luck to the amazing Poli Genova

In before juries lovefests Australia and Ukraine and Rusia gets the Il Volo effect.

Probably gonna watch the Giro tomorrow and maybe some football from the last rounds. And of course the big final in Eurovision in the evening.

Pretty much, even with the awful song... Also i expect them to poor big points to Australia, because they loooove Australia. Bjorkman giving them the pimp spot once again...

Yay Poli

Poli amazing.

Ireland was better than the minimum expectations. Still it will be a shock if it qualifies.

Rykka on fire, literally

Almost time

My predictions for the second semifinal. A lot more open than the first and bar 2-3 songs, anyone can qualify. That is why i'm also a little bit nervous for Poli. I hope everything goes as planned and all the possitive feedback she has gotten is transfered into votes. The obvious qualifiers are Ukraine, Australia, Serbia. The fairly secure ones i could say are Israel, Latvia, Belgium and us hopefully. The last 3 spots are a real battle and i'll put my money on Poland (very good singer, even if the song isn't anything special, but the big polish diaspora will qualify the song i suppose), Lithuania (energetic sond and the staging is good, so i think it will get through) and Belarus, which may surprise many, but the publicity he has gotten and visual staging will help him even if the song is awful. But like i said a very open semifinal and some of the rest could very well sneak in.

Yup, Dumoulin is here just for the TTs. He is doing the same like in the Vuelta, chalking up time in the early stages, before the real mountains hit. And after sunday he will have a very good lead 1:30, maybe 2 minutes from the rest of the favourites, so he is definately not just walking around. Maybe he won't have the legs in the big stages to keep a podium finish, but a top 6 position like in the Vuelta is quite possible. Speaking of podium finishes Zakarin and Chavez are looking very good for me and i think they can make a big surprise by the end. Nibali still in no form, poor performance today, but maybe it is a good thing to not peak early.

Well, that is very good for Iliev, he deserved it after being so close at every tournament. 11 quotas is still one shy of what i would have like, but it is still an improvement from London. Now if one (or more ) of them can get a medal it will be awesome. I am not surprised of the "polish" wrestler Gadziev being DQ after the way he man-handled Novachkov out of nowhere...