This afternoon, Lake Malawi was crowned the winner of the online Czech national final. They will represent Czech Republic at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv, Israel in May.
Eight acts took part in this year’s Czech national final. Contrary to many other countries, no televised final was held. Everything was done online – and the winner presented at a press conference this afternoon
The voting was calculated based on 11 international jury members (10 former Eurovision participants + 1 jury consisting of the votes from international fans) sat on 50% of the result. The other 50% came from the votes from the Czech fans submitted via an APP on their mobile phones.
12 points from the former Eurovision participants
Most of the 10 former Eurovision participants are from the 2018 competition, and they represented a wide variety of countries, yet their 12 points were only divided on to three of the 8 acts:
- Cesár Sampson (Austria 2018) gave 12 points to Barbora Mochowa – True Colors
- Rasmussen (Denmark 2018) gave 12 points to Barbora Mochowa – True Colors
- Zibbz (Switzerland 2018) gave 12 points to Barbora Mochowa – True Colors
- Ira Losco (Malta 2007 and 2016) gave 12 points to Lake Malawi – Friend of A Friend
- Elina Netšajeva (Estonia 2018) gave 12 points to Lake Malawi – Friend of A Friend
- AWS (Hungary 2018) gave 12 points to Andrea Holá – Give Me a Hint
- Alma (France 2017) gave 12 points to Barbora Mochowa – True Colors
- Ari Ólafsson (Iceland 2018) gave 12 points to Lake Malawi – Friend of A Friend
- JOWST (Norway 2017) gave 12 points to Lake Malawi – Friend of A Friend
- Ryan O’Shaughnessy (Ireland 2018) gave 12 points to Lake Malawi – Friend of A Friend
When all points were calculated up, it stood clear that the winner of the 2019 Czech national final was Lake Malawi. They will represent the country at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest with the song Friend Of A Friend. The band consist of lead vocalist, guitarist, and keyboardist Albert Černý, bassist and keyboardist Jeroným Šubrt, and drummer Antonín Hrabal.
Czech Republic at the Eurovision Song Contest
If you talk about countries who have struggled at Eurovision, you can’t get around mentioning the Czech Republic. Their participations came in two blocks; from 2007 to 2009 where all three Czech entries failed to reach the final of the Eurovision Song Contest. All scored extremely low, with just one, nine and zero points respectively. After that, the broadcaster pulled the plug, and the country didn’t return to Eurovision before 2015.
When Czech Republic returned things got a little bit better, but only a little bit. In 2016, Gabriela Gunčíková took the country into the final for the first time. She came second to last, but nonetheless, they had made it to the final and that was something to be proud of. Things quickly got back to normal as Martina Bárta failed the following year… but then came Mikolas Josef. Not only did he qualify for the final, he also achieved a 6th place. Czech Republic in top 10 for the very first time!
Remind yourself of Mikolas’ Lie To Me entry in the video below, which is from a performance at Eurovision In Concert last year:
