(Picture Courtesy of © Elke Roels (EBU) Second Semi Final Winners Press Conference – Part 2)

Last night saw the final 10 songs qualify for tomorrows final and there were some shock results. the countries that made the final were

Serbia – FYR Macedonia – Malta – Ukraine – Sweden – Turkey – Estonia – Norway – Bosnia and Herzegovina and Lithuania. I think we all expected this to be a close Semi Final and when the first country called out was Lithuania we all knew that there would be some shocks.

Personally I only got 6/10 of the qualifiers – 3 of which I am very happy about – Malta, Estonia and Ukraine. There was a gasp at Bosnia Herzegovina qualifying as many had not given it much of a chance. But when it was called out we all knew that it would be at the expense of one of the favourites and in this case it was The Netherlands. I was actually sitting with the Irish and Dutch fans. Our poor friends from The Netherlads had great hopes of making the final this year as they have not been in a final since 2004. maybe again!

Now the running order is not completed and it makes for some very interesting reading and analysis.

1. United Kingdom

2. Hungary

3. Albania

4. Lithuania

5. Bosnia

6. Russia

7.Iceland

8.Cyprus

9.France

10. Italy

11.Estonia

12.Norway

13.Azernaijan

14.Romania

15.Denmark

16.Greece

17. Sweden

18.Turkey

19.Spain

20.Germany

21.Malta

22.FYR Macedonia

23.Ireland

24.Serbia

25.Ukraine

26.Moldova

Now what we can say is that this is going to the slowest start to a Eurovision Song Contest ever. With the first 3 songs being slow tempo tracks and then Lithuania in 4th – which is a mid temp song followed Bosnia in 5th you really have to wait until number 6 before you get a huge dance song and it is none other than The Grannies” form Russia asking everyone “To Come On and Dance”. This went huge in the hall in the semi final and will again in the final so this places Russia as the one to beat.

The other pre show favourite – Sweden – Is in slot number 17 – and sandwiched in between 2 other dance songs – Greece and Turkey. This could really hinder Sweden’s chances to win – so much so that I am predicting that it will finish in the 6-10 placings.

Spain sining in 19th place and after 3 high energy songs will completely stand out as being a stunning ballad – so watch out for this one in the final.

Ireland and Serbia in 23rd and 24th places respectively – both stand out as being highly different from each other and therefore should be memeorable. Being close to the end of the show they will both be in the minds of the Televoters just before the voting lines open.

One gets the feeling that Russia could have an advantage being the first up tempo song. This is a really tough final to call. I think it could be a close voting show and we could be in for a good few surprises. We are just waiting to see the first full rehearsal of the final. When you see and hear all the songs performed back to back this could really change your mind on a song.

At the moment I think our winner will come from Russia, Serbia, Ireland, Sweden, Cyprus, Italy or Spain. However in a few hours this may change when all the songs are performed back to back for the first time.

So who do you think will be the winners?