Photo: Eurovision.tv

In Thursday’s second semi final, another ten acts were chosen for the big final of the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday in Stockholm. This means we now know all 26 countries that will fight for the win in the biggest music competition of Europe. Now the big question remains: who is going to take the trophy? A Bit of Pop Music predicts the number 1, based on the bookmakers, the iTunes charts and the starting order.

Bookmakers
The bookmakers are an authority when it comes to the prediction of the results in the Eurovision Song Contest as their list predicted the complete top 5 right a day before the final last year. This year the most people have been putting their money on Russia’s Sergey Lazarev and his visually spectacular performance for his song ‘You Are The Only One’. Ever since his track was out, he never left his first place anymore, quite similar to last year’s Swedish winner.

Behind Russia, a lot happened over the past few weeks, but Dami Im‘s performance representing Australia last night, brought the country back to the second position. She for sure is a threat to the contest moving to Sochi next year. Two countries that have been rising quickly ever since the rehearsals started are Ukraine and Armenia. They are now at the 3rd and 6th positions respectively, but should definitely be viewed as outsiders for the win. At the same time France’s Amir was at a steady second position in the betting odds until last week, but is now at number 4. The top 5 is completed by Sweden and Frans, a dark horse in this year’s competition with a very contemporary song. Malta, Italy, Latvia and The Netherlands complete the Bookmakers’ top 10 and are expected to receive a good result on Saturday.

The full top 26:

Source: Oddschecker.com

iTunes charts
The iTunes charts predict a two horse race between Russia and Australia. Both Sergey Lazarev and Dami Im have made their way to the top 100 of the charts in 11 countries. Australia can expect big points from Sweden, Norway and Greece while Russia might get a lot from Finland, Belarus and Estonia. Apart from the two main favourites we see Belgium’s Laura Tesoro performing really well with a place in the top 100 within nine countries, while the bookmakers don’t expect her to reach top 10. Both Sweden and Ukraine follow shortly with eight spots within top 100’s all around Europe. Frans is already charting at number two in Estonia.

While these countries are performing well, Iveta from Armenia will probably have to hope for the votes of the juries and the diaspora around Europe, as her song isn’t setting the charts on fire yet. The same goes for other favourites like France, Italy and Malta. Austria and The Netherlands are both in for a more than decent result based on their iTunes positiions where the Netherlands might receive the 12 from Armenia as Douwe Bob is charting at number 3 there.

See the full list of countries and their iTunes positions at the moment.

Starting Order
We can safely say Belgium, Czech Republic and the Netherlands didn’t have luck this year with their decided starting position as they have to open while still 23 other songs are coming after. Australia has a nice spot in the middle at 13, right in between Poland and Cyprus. Russia performs at 18 in between Croatia and Spain, which isn’t bad at all for them either. Ukraine starts at 21 and will be quite fresh in the mind of the viewers and it will for sure be interesting to see what will happen to Armenia who closes the show with a bang! Austria might surprise from starting position 24 as well.

Final prediction
Taking all of this into account I predict this top 5:

01. Australia
02. Russia
03. Ukraine
04. Sweden
05. Armenia

I believe that Australia might win it in the end as Dami’s vocal performance will impress and the song is more contemporary than the track the Russians bring to the table. This means she will do very well with both the juries and the televoters. Will be a close call anyway!

Also check out our reviews for the first and second semi final!