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Turkey's representative, Hadise, performed at her best to take fourth place receiving 177 points in the voting. "I represented my country very well," she said after the competition.
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Twenty-five performers from across Europe competed in
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"Fairytale," penned and performed by 23-year-old fiddler Alexander Rybak, blew away competition from Iceland’s Yohanna, who finished second, and Azerbaijan’s AySel & Arash, who was third, with a folksy melody to the accompaniment of an acrobatic dance routine and two blonde female support singers.
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The elfin-faced Rybak, the winning graduate of a Norwegian television talent show in 2006, accrued the most points in Eurovisions 53-year history, outstripping
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As usual glitz and kitsch dominated the show, including dancing Roman gladiators and one performer clad in a blue sequined mask, writhing on the floor. ÂBut there was also a smattering of well-established stars. Andrew Lloyd Webber, famed for his successful musicals, composed the
British entry and
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Politics also bubbled to the surface of this year's competition. Organizer’s banned
Police hauled away around 40 demonstrators, including British-based activist Peter Tatchell and American activist Andy Thayer of Chicago, co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network, who had defied the
Rybak appeared to throw his support behind the gay rights protesters when he said at the news conference: "Why did they (the
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As winner,
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