Right after winning the Greek ticket for the 2010 Giorgos Alkaios spoke to esctoday.com about his victory and his friends.

Did Giorgos expect to win the Greek final? Being a very low profile artist, he never wanted to go out and say it, although Opa had been the hot favourite both in Greece and with international Eurovision fans (estctoday.com readers gave it 29.9% in the poll), it still hadn't really sunk in when we met him after the Greek final.

The atmosphere backstage Studio Alpha was explosive with fans and press cheering and dancing to the beat of Opa for hours after the show had ended. Giorgos spoke to us about how important team work is for him and (off camera) he told us that there will be a different staging for Oslo by Emi Zarian as well as different styling and costumes by Pantelis Mitsou, two of his friends who worked with him for the Greek final. The song will remain in Greek.

According to Giorgos, Opa is a happy word and just what people need in a time of trouble, his song is all about about leaving the past behind and starting all over again. In a world shaken by the current economic circumstance, Alkaios thinks the Eurovision Song Contest is "heaven" and wishes to see us all in Oslo.

The Giorgos Alkaios interview

You can view the full esctoday.com gallery from Ellinikos Telikos here