Tonight 11 years ago... Diva!

On May 9, 1998, UK hosted already its eight Eurovision, this time in Birmingham's National Indoor Arena with capacity of 4.000. It was the rotating years so Slovakia, Israel, Romania, Belgium and Finland returned after a break of a year and Fyr Macedonia debuted. Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Denmark, Iceland and Russia had to stay home instead. Italy just stayed home (and never returned ...) Terry Wogan hosted the show with Swedish born Ulrika Johnsson. Chiara and Edsilia Rombley debuted and would return later. Michael Hadziyiannis was there, too, and would become a huge star afterwords. But it was the Israeli transsexual Dana International that caused the biggest mediastorm, not seen before and would only be repeted by Lordi 8 years later. Israel, Malta and UK were fighting for the victory until the end but Dana beat Imaani with 6 points and took Israel's 3rd victory. She even changed her dress before returning to the stage and caused a real Diva like delay but it was worth it: her dress by Jean-Paul Gaultier was worth seeing! (Hey, if she didn't win ... where would she have worn it??). Eurovision viewing figures were growing rapidly and the televote took place in all countries except Hungary and Cyprus. And Dana scored a big hit with her winning song and enjoyed fame and fortune for years to come.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv83u7-mNWQ

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