Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest 1999

Prior to the 1999 contest, Cyprus had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 17 times since its first entry in 1981.[1] It then participated yearly, only missing the 1988 contest when its selected song "Thimame" by Yiannis Dimitrou was disqualified for being previously released.[2] To this point, the country's best placing was fifth, which it achieved twice: in 1982 with the song "Mono i agapi" performed by Anna Vissi and in 1997 with "Mana mou" performed by Hara and Andreas Constantinou.[1] Cyprus' least successful result was in 1986 when it placed last with the song "Tora zo" by Elpida, receiving only four points in total.[1]

The Eurovision Song Contest 1999 took place at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, Israel on 29 May 1999.[6] According to Eurovision rules, the 23-country participant list for the contest was composed of: the winning country from the previous year's contest; the 17 countries, other than the previous year's winner, which had obtained the highest average number of points over the last five contests; and any countries which had not participated in the previous year's content.[7] Cyprus was one of the 17 countries with the highest average scores, and thus were permitted to participate.[7][8] The running order for the contest was decided by a draw held on 17 November 1998; Cyprus was assigned position 14, following Iceland and preceding Sweden.[6][7]

Prior to the contest, the nation had reached first place in betting odds in April, which prompted a Cypriot delegation representative to respond at a CyBC press conference, saying they would prefer to not win due to the costs of hosting the next year and would instead prefer to place a "respectable second".[9] By late May, however, the British company Ladbrokes had shown Cyprus falling to a predicted sixth place.[10][11] Despite the odds, the entry only received two points, both from United Kingdom, placing 22nd in the field of 23, beating only Spain.[6] Andrew Adamides of Cyprus Mail wrote in a summary of the contest that Cyprus' poor placing is thought to be attributed to this being the first contest where an entry could be performed in any language (Cyprus' entry was performed in Greek, while the winning song, in English) and possibly due to political voting.[12] For her performance, Angelidou was joined by two backing vocalists: Nicole Jones and Lina Kawar.[4]

Voting

The same voting system in use since 1975 was again implemented for this event, with each country providing 1–8, 10 and 12 points to the ten highest-ranking songs as determined by a selected jury or the viewing public through televoting, with countries not allowed to vote for themselves. This was the second contest to feature widespread public voting, and Cyprus opted to implement this method to determine which countries would receive their points, with an 8-member back-up jury assembled in case technical failures rendered the telephone votes invalid. Around 15,000 calls were registered in Cyprus in total during the five-minute voting window, which determined the nation's points.[7][12]

Points awarded to Cyprus[13] Score Country 12 points 10 points 8 points 7 points 6 points 5 points 4 points 3 points 2 points  United Kingdom 1 point

Points awarded by Cyprus[13] Score Country 12 points  Iceland 10 points  Israel 8 points  Denmark 7 points  Norway 6 points  Sweden 5 points  Lithuania 4 points  United Kingdom 3 points  Malta 2 points  Croatia 1 points  Austria

• O'Connor, John Kennedy (2010). The Eurovision Song Contest: The Official History (2nd ed.). London: Carlton Books. ISBN 978-1-84732-521-1.

• Cypriot National Final 1999