The Eesti Laul competition for 2013 chose its winner on Saturday night, and the recipient of the ticket to this year’s Eurovision Song Contest is Birgit Õigemeel with the song “Et uus saaks alguse”.
In a two-song superfinal, Õigemeel’s traditional ballad won out over the piano/electro/laser stylings of Grete Paia by the narrowest of margins, receiving 51% of the televote.
Prior to that, cult fan favourites Winny Puhh had come desperately close to making the superfinal with their three minutes of shouting about their homeboy Korsakov and his recent trip to Latvia (despite wearing different and – to be honest – less spectacular costumes than in the semi-final). Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, a handful of jury members were slightly less welcoming than the televote, meaning that the Puhh boys had to settle for third place overall.
Birgit Õigemeel came to fame as the winner of the first season of Eesti otsib superstaari, the Idol show that was later also won by last year’s Estonian representative Ott Lepland. Indeed, Õigemeel was one of the artists defeated by Lepland in Eesti Laul 2012 – but now she gets her revenge and a chance to participate in the first half of the first semi-final of ESC 2013, to be held on Tuesday May 14th. Which means fan sites and print journalists around the continent have approximately two months to find out where the “Õ” key lives on their keyboards.
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