An Xtra Happy Birthday; September 3rd

We continue the flood of Eurovision birthdays that started on Friday. Today we have another five birthdays to celebrate! There are two guys and three girls, with ages varying from 67 to 33.  None of them are winners, but we do have a third place! We also have a last place, but we won’t dwell on that. Instead, let’s start with the first birthday! 

Pave Maijanen, 67

Pave represented Finland at the 1992 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö. Performing the song “Yamma, Yamma”, he finished last, scoring a mere four points.

Valery Tzenkov, 44

Valery is the drummer and one of the founding members of the band Kaffe. They represented Bulgaria at the 2005 Eurovision in Kyiv. This was Bulgaria’s Eurovision debut. Unfortunately, Kaffe failed to qualify for the grand final. They finished 19th in the semi final with their entry “Lorraine”.

Tinkara Kovac, 39

Tinkara represented Slovenia at the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen. She finished 24th in the final, with the song “Round and Round”. Tinkara had already taken part in the national final three times before, in 1997, 1999 and 2001. However, on these occasions she failed to win the golden ticket to Eurovision.

Polina Smolova, 37

Polina represented Belarus at the 2006 Eurovision with the song “Mum”. She failed to qualify for the final, after finishing 22nd in the semi final. Six years later, in 2012, she took part in the Russian pre-selection with a tribute to Michael Jackson. However, and like everyone else that year, she lost to the grandmas.

Sergey Stepanov (Epic Sax Guy), 33

Sergey, better known as Epic Sax Guy, has represented Moldova at Eurovision twice. Both times he did so as part of the band SunStroke Project. The first time was in Oslo at the 2010 Eurovision. Back then they finished in 22nd place with their song “Run Away“. However, their second participation was much more successful! Kyiv 2017 saw them soaring into third place with “Hey Mamma”. Between 2010 and 2017 they also took part in two more national pre-selections; in 2012 with “Superman” and 2015 with “Day After Day“. However, both these times they failed to win the Moldovan Eurovision ticket.

All of us here at escXtra wish Pave, Valery, Tinkara, Polina and Sergey the very best of birthdays!