Conchita Wurst sang Rise like a phoenix in 2014.

Tom Neuwirth was born in 1988 in Gmunden, Austria and was raised in a winter sports area called Bad Mitterndorf. It’s between Salzburg and Graz.

He tells that his parents, Helga and Siegfried, brought him up in a wonderful place, but being a gay teenager in such an area made things very difficult. Knowing that he was not the same as others made him think that he was the one with the problem. Even at a very young age he had wanted to dress differently, even at kindergarten, when he had been known to wear a skirt.

Fashion was the saving of his education and, when fourteen years old, he went to the Fashion School in Graz. He also developed an interest in singing at about the same time.

In 2006, Tom took part in the third edition of the Austrian TV show Starmania, finishing in second place to Nadine Beiler. It was she who was to represent their country when ORF, the state broadcaster, returned to Eurovision in 2011 with the song The secret is love.

One year later, in 2007, Tom founded the boyband called Jetzt Anders! During their short time together they released a song called Dieser moment which entered the singles chart at Number 7 and remained in the Top 75 for ten weeks. Despite that the group disbanded before the year was out.

This break up was to the world’s fortune as the time had come for Tom to create Conchita. This first name was taken from a Cuban friend and Wurst, apart from being a German sausage is part of a phrase, Das ist mir doch alles wurst, meaning I don’t care.

The beard often prompts the question Why? The answer is that it shows how you look should not affect what you can achieve.

Conchita was first seen by a television audience on ORF’s talent show Die große chance, which was revived in 2011 after being a successful in the 80s and 90s. She came sixth.

In 2012 she entered the national selection for Eurovision and, out of ten finalists, came second to Trackshittaz and the song Woki mit deim popo. Lukas Plöchl  and Manuel Hoffelner came 18th in their semi final and so did not qualify for the final.

The last year has seen Conchita become a global name and the UK newspaper Daily Mail gave her the title of a Global Superstar. The UK commentator, Graham Norton, said that Eurovision has done something that matters just a little bit. She has become a willing Ambassador for the LGBT community and has brought the Eurovision Song Contest publicity like it could never have imagined for it’s sixtieth anniversary.

The Eurovision Song Contest 2014 was the fifty ninth edition of the event.

The venue was the B&W Hallerne in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The building was designed as a place to construct ships, hence the extremely high roof. It served this purpose until 1996 and since then has been used for various entertainment events. The Danish broadcaster, DR, decided that Hall 2 would be used for Eurovision and significant construction work had to be carried out. There was hope that it would become a Eurovision village but this didn’t come to pass. The city of Copenhagen pledged over five million euro towards the costs.

Access was somewhat limited as there is only one road to the area, but buses and boats were used and everybody did get to the shows without any problems.

Thirty seven countries participated this year with Poland and Portugal returning, but four withdrawing, being Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus and Serbia. This was the smallest number of participants since 2006.

The stage was the tallest in the contest’s history, due to the design of the building, and a modern day record number of viewers tuned in, reportedly being over 195 million.

The first semi final proved to be a successful one for San Marino and Ralph Siegel. This team had been trying to qualify for the final since 2012. They received one point more than Portugal and achieved their goal. The winners of this heat were to be The Netherlands with Sweden close behind.. Between 2005 and 2012 the Dutch entries had not qualified for the final. In 2004 Re-Union sang Without you, coming twentieth but it was not until 2013 when Anouk sang her own song Birds that they were back, coming ninth in Malmö.

The second semi final result was no surprise to anyone but the element of suspense was kept right to the end, as the last country to be announced was Austria. In fact they had won their heat by a margin of forty four points with Romania coming second.

In the final, there was an interesting mix of votes. The publicity surrounding Conchita had various consequences. Four countries gave Austria no points, five gave less than five points but a total of twenty three gave her one of the top three marks, thirteen of them being the prized douze points.

The top three ended up as being Sanna Nielsen, singing Undo for Sweden who received 218 points. Next, in second place, were The Common Linnets for the Netherlands. Their song Calm after the storm got 238 points.

The contest had been won by Conchita Wurst singing Rise like a phoenix for Austria. Despite the doubts and criticisms of many, 290 points and victory proved that diversity wins.

It is said that the Eurovision Song Contest win never be the same again.

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Read our previous Countdown to Eurovision’s Greatest Hits articles below:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

Stay tuned to esctoday.com for more news on the past, present and future of the Eurovision Song Contest

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