A week before Marina Satti took to the Malmö stage for her first rehearsal for this year’s Eurovision and in the wake of the “scandal” that involved the Greek jury for the pre-decided low score for Cyprus, zappit recorded characteristic incidents of the popular musician contest.
After the year, where Greece did not give a single point to the Cypriot song, this time we look back on all those years when Greece and Cyprus, despite being in the Grand Final both, did not exchange the coveted 12 in the standings.
What years did this… paradoxical for our data phenomenon happen and what were the songs that participated?
We take things from the beginning and travel to 1981, the year Cyprus made its Eurovision debut with the band “Island” singing the track “Monika”. Greece was represented by Yiannis Dimitras with “Summer Moon”. Result; Greece “welcomed” Megalonisos to the competition with a generous 12 points, while Cyprus was content to give us only 6 points.
Two years later, in 1983, Greece and Cyprus met again on the Eurovision stage. There, as we have mentioned in our related text, Cyprus rewarded the effort of Christy Stassinopoulos with 12 points. However, in retaliation for the low score in 1981, the Greek committee awarded an all round… zero to Constantina, representing Cyprus.
In 1985 the two countries exchanged a generous 8, while in 1989 Greece gave Cyprus 7, while Cyprus gave Greece 12 for Mariana Efstratiou’s “Star of Your Own”. In 1990 the judges probably… agreed to exchange 6 points, while in 1991 Greece gave 12 to Elena Patroklou and “SOS”. Instead, Sofia Vossou for “Spring” received 10 from the Cypriot jury.
We arrive at 1992, where Cyprus awarded the coveted 12-a-lot to Cleopatra for Greece. However, we were less… generous, giving Eurydice 10 points for “We Match”.
The exact same scenario was repeated in 1993, where Greece was represented at Eurovision by Kaiti Garbi (10 points from Cyprus) and Cyprus by Kyriakos Zoumboulakis and Dimos Beke (12 points from Greece).
The last time in the 90’s that Greece and Cyprus did not exchange 12 points in the Final was in 1995. There Alex Panagi was evaluated with 6 by the Greek committee, while Elina Konstantopoulou received the 12 from her homeland, singing in Greek colors “Poia Prayer”.
However, this was not the last time that the Greek and Cypriot scores were not… identical at 12 points. In 2015, the Cypriot-born Maria-Elena Kyriakou received only 8 points from her native country for “One Last Breath”, while Yiannis Karagiannis received 10 from Greece, performing “One Thing That I Should Know” for Cyprus.
It is noted that the above incidents only concern the years that Greece and Cyprus were – or qualified according to the regulations established later – both in the Eurovision Final without exchanging the coveted 12 and not the times when one of the two countries failed to qualify .
