At the annual OGAE France preview, French fans mirrored the new 2004 voting procedure to predict this years results. Dividing the meeting into 36 'juries' the event voted on the semi final in the morning, keeping the results a secret and then voted on the final later in the day. They were also treated to a performance from Monaco�s 1970 Eurovision Song Contest performer to celebrate their return to the contest.
France 10th
The results placed Serbia & Montenegro as the predicted winners; 79 points ahead of strongly tipped Sweden, with Spain coming in 3rd place. The top 10, shown below, includes several countries that have yet to be spoken about as potential winners in many circles, including Andorra in 5th, Israel in 7th place and Monaco in 8th. France ended up 10th in the home-made poll.
Still wide open
Greece, the current 4/1 favourites at bookmaker William Hill, failed to qualify from the qualifier round, having drawn on points with Ukraine (qualified) and Albania (didn�t qualify), something that is bound to cause rising tension between the East and West Mediterranean, but the results clearly show that despite all the predictions of a three horse race between Greece, Sweden and Belgium are premature. The 2004 Eurovision Song Contest looks like it is still wide open.
Unpredicable predictions
OGAE France would like to make it clear that past predictions include last year's Turkish song in 17th place, and equally low predictions for the winning song in 2000 and 2002. “So, if you want to guess which country can win this year, you'd better have a look at the 15-20 places – Russia, Norway, Germany, Austria, Croatia and the UK”, Dominque Dufaut of OGAE France said to esctoday.com
Top 10 of the OGAE France voting:
1. Serbia & Montenegro – 257
2. Sweden – 178
3. Spain – 162
4. Belgium – 150
5. Andorra – 140
6. Denmark – 135
7. Israel – 130
8. Monaco – 126
9. Cyprus – 107
10. France – 101
