And after mesmerising the whole Europe with her performance, which gave Cypriots their best Eurovision result to date, it was time for the country’s political leadership to congratulate her! This year’s Cypriot entrant, Eleni Foureira, paid today an official visit to the country’s Presidential Palace in Nicosia.

“Thank you!”

It feels amazing for Cyprus this year. In 2018, the country’s national broadcaster CyBC  decided to leave behind a long series of poor Eurovision results and was determined to head for its first Eurovision victory. That dream finally came true, as their representative Eleni Foureira managed to bring the island of Aphrodite to the Eurovision top, earning an impressive 2nd place.

At the Palace, Eleni was welcomed by the President of Cyprus Nicos Anastasiades, who praised and honoured her for her Eurovision success, which is also considered as an important national achievement. Together with Foureira was also her song’s composer and producer Alex Papaconstantinou, who yesterday flew from Sweden to Cyprus for that reason, as well as the Head of the Cypriot delegation, Evi Papamichail.

Via his official Twitter account, Nicos Anastasiades shared some pictures from the event, thanking once again the members of the Cypriot delegation for their effort and making the island proud. In particular, he wrote:

I was glad to welcome Eleni Foureira, Alex Papakonstantinou and members of the delegation who represented our country in the Eurovision Song Contest, in the Presidential Palace. We thank them; with their work and their presence, they became very good ambassadors of Cyprus abroad.

Με χαρά υποδέχτηκα στο Προεδρικό την @foureira_eleni , τον Άλεξ Παπακωνσταντίνου και μέλη της αντιπροσωπείας που εκπροσώπησαν την χώρα μας στο διαγωνισμό της @Eurovision. Τους ευχαριστούμε, με τη δουλειά και την παρουσία τους έγιναν πολύ καλοί πρεσβευτές της Κύπρου στο εξωτερικό. pic.twitter.com/B5Oa7hg4f5

— Nicos Anastasiades (@AnastasiadesCY) June 4, 2018

Obviously excited about that visit, the Greek pop star kept on posting pictures and Instagram stories, sharing her emotions and thanking the country’s President for that honor. While talking to Nicos Anastasiades, Eleni Foureira said the following:

We are very glad that we managed this with CyBC; to make Europe talk about Cyprus. This was our goal from the beginning. We wanted Cyprus to impress this year. We are very proud and it is a great honour for us to be here today. We are very happy and we thank all Cypriots and you for trusting us.

The honor is all mine!

Below you may listen to her statements (in Greek):

https://www.instagram.com/p/BjmYjE5gOm4/?taken-by=foureira

Eleni Foureira at Eurovision

Following an internal selection last January, the Cypriot national broadcaster CyBC announced that the Greek pop singer Eleni Foureira was going to defend the country’s colours at Lisbon’s Eurovision edition, with a song penned by the highly-acclaimed Swedish-Greek composer Alex Papaconstantinou and his team, entitled Fuego.

After an extraordinary performance on the stage of Altice Arena, Eleni Foureira qualified for the Grand Final of 12 May, where she finally came 2nd to this year’s winner Israel, with a total of 436 points.