jury out

Eurovision Song Contest 1986

The Eurovision Song Contest 1986 was the 31st Eurovision Song Contest and was held on May 3, 1986 in the Grieg Hall in Bergen, Norway. The presenter was Åse Kleveland. The 1986 contest was a first for Eurovision in that royalty were among the guests — Crown Prince Harald, Crown Princess Sonja, Princess Märtha Louise and Prince Haakon Magnus were all in attendance.

Sandra Kim was the winner of this Eurovision with the song, "J'aime la vie". The song received points from every jury (Belgium received five sets of 12 points; every country awarded Belgium at least five points except for Germany, which gave them just one point). Belgium was the winner in the voting from the results of the second jury out of twenty, in the longest winning stretch during voting since 1974.

Aged 13, Kim was the youngest ever Eurovision winner. Current rules require Eurovision Song Contest participants to be at least 16, so unless the rule is changed Kim's record will never be broken. In the lyrics of her song, Kim claimed to be 15 years of age, but after the Contest, it was revealed that she was actually 13. Switzerland appealed for her to be disqualified, but this was to no avail.

Presenter Åse Kleveland sang the multilingual "Welcome to Music" as the opening act, incorporating English and French primarily, in addition to other European languages. BBC commentator Terry Wogan, at the close of Kleveland's number, dryly remarked, "Katie Boyle [a former Eurovision host for the UK] never sang, did she?"

As this was the first time Norway hosted a Eurovision Song Contest, NRK, the state broadcaster, commissioned a lavish budget for the event, turning Grieg Hall into a Viking-esque "ice palace," complete with white and pastel neon lights for the stage. In addition, NRK also had a special diamond-encrusted dress made for Kleveland for her opening number. The prized dress, which weighed upwards of 15 pounds (6.8 kg), is still available for viewing at NRK's costuming department at Marienlyst in Oslo.

During her opening speech, Kleveland said of Norway's road in the contest, "For those of you who have followed Norway's course through the history of the Eurovision Song Contest, you will know that it has been quite thorny, in fact. So, imagine our joy when last year we finally won, and the pleasure we feel today, being able to welcome 700 million viewers to the top of Europe, to Norway, and to Bergen."

Greece withdrew, having been drawn eighteenth in order of presentation. Their entry would have been Wagon-lit performed by Polina. Iceland competed for the very first time, as the national broadcaster RÚV finally cemented their satellite television connections with the rest of Europe. The Italian broadcaster, RAI, simply decided not to send any delegation to Bergen.

Results

Draw	Language	Artist	Song	English Translation	Place	Points
1	French	Sherisse Stevens	L'Amour De Ma Vie	The Love Of My Life	3	117
2	Serbo-Croatian	Doris Dragović	Željo moja	My Desire	11	49
3	French	Cocktail Chic	Européennes	European Girls	17	13
4	Norwegian	Ketil Stokkan	Romeo	Romeo	12	44
5	English	Ryder	Runner In The Night	-	7	72
6	Icelandic	ICY	Gleðibankinn	The Bank of Joy	16	19
7	Dutch	Frizzle Sizzle	Alles Heeft Ritme	Everything Has Rhythm	13	40
8	Turkish	Klips ve Onlar	Halley	Halley	9	53
9	Spanish	Cadillac	Valentino	Valentino	10	51
10	French	Daniela Simons	Pas Pour Moi	Not For Me	2	140
11	Hebrew	Moti Giladi & Sarai Tzuriel	Yavo Yom (יבוא יום)	A Day Will Come	19	7
12	English	Luv Bug	You Can Count On Me	-	4	96
13	French	Sandra Kim	J'Aime La Vie	I Love Life	1	176
14	German	Ingrid Peters	Über Die Brücke Geh'n	Crossing The Bridge	8	62
15	Greek	Elpida	Tora Zo (Τώρα ζω)	Now I Live	20	4
16	German	Timna Brauer	Die Zeit Ist Einsam	Time Is Lonely	18	12
17	Swedish	Lasse Holm & Monica Törnell	E' De' Det Här Du Kallar Kärlek?	Is This What You Call Love?	5	78
18	Danish	Lise Haavik	Du Er Fuld Af Løgn	You Are Full Of Lies	6	77
19	Finnish	Kari Kuivalainen	Never The End	Never The End	15	22
20	Portuguese	Dora	Não Sejas Mau Para Mim	Don't Be Bad To Me	14	28

Score sheet

		Results

	Luxembourg		5	8	12	8	1	8	0	0	2	4	7	10	12	8	10	10	2	4	6
	Yugoslavia	2		0	0	7	5	7	3	3	0	1	3	4	0	12	1	1	0	0	0
	France	0	0		3	0	0	0	0	0	7	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0	0	0
	Norway	0	0	4		0	4	2	0	0	6	0	6	5	6	6	0	0	5	0	0
	United Kingdom	4	0	10	6		0	0	6	2	4	2	0	0	5	2	3	8	8	10	2
	Iceland	0	0	0	0	0		5	2	6	0	0	0	0	0	4	0	2	0	0	0
	Netherlands	1	2	0	0	0	0		7	1	0	8	0	0	10	1	0	0	0	3	7
	Turkey	6	12	0	0	2	0	6		0	8	3	0	6	8	0	2	0	0	0	0
	Spain	7	4	6	0	1	2	0	8		1	0	5	3	0	0	7	0	3	1	3
	Switzerland	12	6	7	5	5	3	12	10	4		12	10	12	0	5	4	12	4	7	10
	Israel	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	5		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Ireland	3	8	3	2	0	8	0	5	12	0	6		2	0	0	12	7	12	8	8
	Belgium	10	10	12	8	10	10	10	12	10	10	5	12		1	10	6	6	10	12	12
	Germany	8	1	0	0	12	0	0	0	0	0	0	8	7		0	8	5	7	2	4
	Cyprus	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0		0	0	0	0	0
	Austria	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	1	2	0		0	0	6	1
	Sweden	5	7	2	7	3	12	3	0	7	12	0	0	0	4	0	5		6	5	0
	Denmark	0	0	5	10	6	7	4	0	5	3	10	4	0	7	7	0	4		0	5
	Finland	0	0	0	0	0	6	1	1	0	0	0	0	8	3	3	0	0	0		0
	Portugal	0	0	0	4	4	0	0	4	8	0	7	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0
THE TABLE IS ORDERED BY APPEARANCE