Katrina Leskanich, who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1997 with a record breaking win has spoken exclusively to esctoday.com tonight after seeing her record breaking victory beaten by Alexander Rybak of Norway.
Katrina spoke to esctoday.com by telephone from Oslo, Norway where she was appearing as a guest performer at a special event. Until tonight, Katrina's victory with Love shine a light for the United Kingdom had been the biggest ever Eurovision Victory by a staggering 70 points. That record was smashed by Alexander Rybak who claimed victory by a fantastic 169 points.
Katrina told esctoday.com about the atmosphere in Oslo:
"Norway rocked tonight. Tomorrow is their independence day and they have everything to celebrate, everything to enjoy. They are going to party hard. This country has it all now. They're going mad here. They have this new arena and they cant wait for Eurovision to come back".
We asked Katrina about her thoughts on seeing her Eurovision Song Contest record victory being broken. She said:
"He beat my record by the way but he's cute as hell, he's a showman, completely talented and god bless him. He really deserved it".
Didyou think Norway would win?
"The really telling thing was when Norway came on stage andthe audience went nuts, it was the same with Love shine a light. it was an overhelming feeling and you just knew it was going to do good. It was the right winner".
What did you think about the United Kingdom's fifth place?
"Jade did a wonderful job, she really did. I was worried that she'd get nervous but she didn't. She held it together and she looked cool. The violin player hitting her was unfortunate but she held it together like a true professional. She could not have done any more."
What did you think of the show?
"The interval act was incredible. It was a splashfest of bodies throwing themselves into the water on some kind of plastersine. The audience could touch it. It was unbelievable. Iceland was fantastic, a great ballad, and the Russian song was just bizarre, what was that about?
Also, I want to say that there are a lot of gay people in Russia who were staging a very peaceful protest about how gay people in are treated there today. They were arrested and bullied. I am so proud of sweden for showing the gay flag during the voting. Me and my partner are very much against the Russian stance on homosexuality. It is archaic, old school and in this day and age, it is diabolical to read about what happened.".
esctoday.com would like to thank Katrina for talking to us tonight.
