Elina Nechayeva to Represent Estonia at Eurovision!

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen Estonia sort through twenty diverse but talented acts through their Eesti Laul semi-finals, and after a week’s break between semi-final 2 and the final, the anticipation just kept growing. Over the weekend the Eesti Laul final took place, and we now have our winner!

The show took place at the Saku Suurhall in Tallinn, where a total of 10 acts performed, 5 qualifiers from each semi-final. The winner was chosen through two rounds of voting, where the first round featured 50% jury vote and 50% televote, with the top three entries moving through to the second round. In this round, the voting was all televote, meaning that the public at home had full control over who they would be sending to Eurovision.

Here are the 10 acts who competed:

  • Karl Kristjan & Karl Killing feat. Wateva – Young

  • Eliis Pärna & Gerli Padar – Sky

  • Nika – Knock Knock

  • Sibyl Vane – Thousand Words

  • Stig Rästa – Home

  • Vajé – Laura (Walk With Me)

  • Elina Nechayeva – La forza

  • Frankie Animal – (Can’t Keep Calling) Misty

  • Iiris & Agoh – Drop That Boogie

  • Evestus – Welcome to My World

The jury voting matched the typical Eurovision voting where the top score is 12, then 10, 8 all the way down to 1. All the points were added up from all the jury members, then these points were converted back into a score with 12 points the top score.

The winner of the jury vote was Elina Nechayeva with her song La Forza, and coming in second with the jury was Sibyl Vane. In third with the jury was Frankie Animal with their song (Can’t Keep Calling) Misty.

In the first round televote, the top points once again were awarded to Elina Nechayeva, who has been a firm favourite to take out Eesti Laul this year. She received an incredible 37628 votes in the televote, which was well beyond the votes of second place Vajé who received 5995 votes from the public. In third place with the public was Karl Kristjan & Karl Killing feat. Whateva.

The combined points were then important to decide who would go through, other than Elina Nechayeva who had scored the maximum 24 points. Coming in second and qualifying through to the second round was Vajé thanks to the televote, finishing with 15 points overall. There was a tie on 14 points between Stig Rästa and Sibyl Vane, however with a tie, it’s the act with the highest televote points who will go through, and it was Stig Rästa who scored higher with the public.

The super final featured these three entries:

  • Stig Rästa – Home

  • Vajé – Laura (Walk With Me)

  • Elina Nechayeva – La forza

The voting, which was all public televoting, was pretty clear on a winner, with Elina Nechayeva winning with an incredible 70% of the vote. She will sing her entry La Forza at Eurovision in Lisbon this May. Watch her performance below: