The fourth esctoday.com TOP TEN list ccontinues today with the place no. 1 being announced. As announced on Saturday, this week's topic are the TOP TEN most impressive debuts.

The ranking will in fact be based on a mathematical formula that consideres the following criteria:

1. A country's placing
2. The number of countries taking part in a certain year
3. The number of countries having their debut in a certain year
4. The participation of a country under a different name/flag in previous years

Here is a fictive example to show how the raking will work:

Let's say in 1953, ten countries competed in the contest: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I and J. The countries A, B and C take part for the first time, the other countries have already taken part in previous editions. If country A is the highest placed debuting country finishing second, how impressive is that debut?

Although a second place is always impressive, it is not as impressive for a debuting country as it seems in the first place for the following reasons:

• Only ten countries took part. Therefore every country has a mathematical chance of strong 20% to reach the top two.
• Three debuting countries took part. Therefore, the mathimatical chances of at least one of them reaching the top two stands at about 53%!

For this reason, the seven countries that competed in the first Eurovision Song Contest in 1956 are excluded from the top ten. The mathematical chances of a debuting country winning was 100% – Lys Assia's picture in the logo is therefore purely symbolical.

The full formula will be revealed on Saturday.

No. 1 – Latvia (2000)

In 2000, only one country had its debut in the Eurovision Song Contest: Latvia. It was the last Baltic country to join the competition and they organised a national final with ten songs competing. At the end of voting, Brainstorm were the clear winners with their song My star. At the Eurovision Song Contest in Stockholm, they finished third behind the representatives of Denmark and Russia. This third place marks the highest place for a debuting country in a year that no other countries had a debut. Only one debuting country had placed higher (Poland in 1994), but that was in a year when seven countries had their debut, which made it far more likely for a new country to reach a high position. Serbia & Montenegro would also finished second in 2004, but the country had already competed under the flag of Yugoslavia before. After their third place in Stockholm, Brainstorm maintained their status as one of Latvia's most popular bands. Lead singer Renars Kaupars also co-hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 in Riga as well as the Congratulations show in 2005.

Latvia's results over the following years would be like on a roller coaster. After a weak result in 2001, when Latvia only got 16 points in total (eight from Estonia and eight from Lithuania), the country won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2002 with Marie N's I wanna. After a bottom three result on homeground in 2003 and an elimination in the semi final in 2004, Latvia returned to the top five in 2005. Since then, the country has not reached the top ten of a final again. The results were especially bitter in the last two years, as Latvia finished last in the semi final both in 2009 and 2010.

Tomorrow, we will show you the formula which was determined to create the ranking. Furthermore, we will provide a full ranking with all debuts since 1957. Of course, we will also reveal next week's topic.