Iceland: RUV confirms Eurovision 2021 participation

Iceland: RUV confirms Eurovision 2021 participation
Wednesday, 16 September 2020

  • The Icelandic national broadcaster, RUV,  has confirmed that it will participate in the forthcoming Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam next May. 

    RUV has confirmed to ESCToday that the country will be returning in the next edition of Eurovision in 2021 at Rotterdam, joining the group of nations that will be joining the party in the Netherlands. 

    However it remains unknown which format the country will use in order to determine its Eurovision 2021 entry. 

     

     

     

    Iceland in Eurovision 

    The Nordic country, which debuted in Eurovision in 1986, was only absent at two editions of the contest, in 1998 and 2002, and that was due to low rankings that its entries received. It is the only country from the Scandinavic ones not to have won the contest, despite its best results in 1999 with Selma and in 2009 with Yohana, when the country finished in the 2nd place

    In 2018 Iceland last year was represented by Ari Ólafsson and his entry Our Choice. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it to the grand final which was the consecutive  fourth time the country failed to qualify. Last year Söngvakeppnin 2019 winner, the group Hatari flew the flag in Tel Aviv and performed on stage Hatrið mun sigra, which qualified to the final where it came 10th with 232 points.

    In 2020 Daði og Gagnamagnið a band formed exclusively for Eurovision, won the national final with the entry Thinks about things .  Unfortunately their Eurovision journey was interrupted due to the covid-19 pandemic which led to the cancellation of this year's contest.