The results of the qualifying round have now been published online, and the most striking fact is that Serbia & Montenegro won by 7 points over the eventual final winners Ukraine. They polled 263 points from the 33 countries who voted on Wednesday 12th May, which is an identical score to the final score, against the 256 achieved by Ruslana for Ukraine. Greece was third in both the qualifying round and final.

If we isolate the countries who came through the qualifying round compared to the final. there are a few other interesting results. Albania were fourth in the qualifying round but were the fifth highest of the qualifiers in tonights final, and effectively swapped places with Cyprus.

The biggest difference is that the Netherlands achieved the sixth place in the qualifying round, but were the least successful of the ten qualifiers in the final contest, coming an overall twentieth.

Apart from those differences the order of the ten countries matched the final placings, with Bosnia & Herzegovina, Malta, Croatia and Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia taking seventh to tenth positions in the qualifying round, and finishing in the same order of merit within the final contest.

Despite the problems with the qualifying voting, there was a comfortable margin between tenth and eleventh positions. FYR Macedonia scored 71 points, while Israel and Estonia both polled 57 points.