Surprise win for Koit Toome and Laura in Estonia

In a surprising turn of events, Koit Toome and Laura have won Eesti Laul 2017. The Eurovision veterans will now go on to represent Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest with their entry Verona.

Verona the surprising winner

Before the show, Koit Toome and Laura were clear outsiders. The big favourite going into tonight’s show was Kerli, with her song Spirit Animal. She also convincingly won the jury vote, but didn’t manage to get the televoting on her side. She finished in second place during the first round and maintained that result in the superfinal. That superfinal was made up of 100% televoting, which benefited Koit and Laura. Eventually finishing sixth with juries, televoters made them qualify for the superfinal and even win it.
Surprise was clearly seen on Laura’s face as they were announced as winners. The hosts tried to play a little joke on the eventual winners, by making it seem there had been a mistake with the winning envelope. Laura and Koit seemed to be fully prepared to go off stage and welcome Kerli as the winner, but the hosts soon turned back and told them it was a joke: They were the rightful winners.

A victory for veterans

Koit Toome and Laura can be called true Eurovision veterans. Both of them have gone to Eurovision before. Koit Toome represented Estonia back in 1998 with Mere Lapsed. He then finished in twelfth place. Laura was part of Suntribe, the girl group representing Estonia back in 2005. A twentieth place in semi wasn’t enough for them to get their Let’s Get Loud to the final in Kyiv.
The show itself was really filled with veterans. Jüri Pootsmann opened the show as last year’s winner, but competing were no less than three other former Eurovision entrants. Ivo Linna (1996) finished in a surprising fifth, coming third in the televote. Lenna Kuurmaa, who went to Kyiv as lead singer of Vanilla Ninja for Switzerland, did slightly worse. She finished fourth in the jury vote, but only ninth with televoters, putting her in eighth. Finally, Elina Born disappointed many: She finished last with both juries and televoters.

(Back) to Kyiv

For Laura it’s back to Kyiv, for Koit it’ll be his first Eurovision there. They’ll be representing Estonia in the second semifinal, where they’ll take part in the second half of that semifinal. Last year, Estonia sent Jüri Pootsmann to Eurovision. He finished in last in the semifinal with his song Play. Will Verona do better this year? Let us know below in the comments section!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R8YE5ZNHgU