Dami Im wins OGAE Song Contest for Australia with “Fighting for Love”!

OGAE Spain announced the results of the OGAE Song Contest 2017 today on their Youtube account. The winner is Dami Im who represented Australia with her song “Fighting For Love”!
The OGAE Song Contest is the third OGAE contest to give its results this year, after the Second Chance Contest and the Retro Contest.

What is the OGAE Song Contest ?

The Song Contest is the oldest of the four annual OGAE contests, the international federation of Eurovision fanclubs. First held in 1986, in Savonlinna (Finland), it is a competition in which all OGAE clubs can participate. Each national club can send a song, as long as it respects these criteria:

• The song must be original (no cover)
• It must have been released the year of the contest or the previous year (2016 or 2017 for this edition)
• It must be sung in one of the country’s official languages
• Obviously, it must not have taken part in the Eurovision Song Contest or any national selection

Moreover, the contest is an audio contest. There is no need for any videoclip, and voters should only take the song into account when voting.
OGAE members can vote inside their club, and the 10 favorite songs of each club receive points in the Eurovision style (1 to 8, then 10 and 12). Unlike in the Second Chance Contest, only the participating countries can vote. The winner then organises the next contest: the club receives the songs from other countries, enforce the rules, receives the voting results and announce them. Originally, the organising club also had to send the songs to each national clubs, mailing audio cassettes. Nowadays, the contest mainly takes place online, and the organising club must host the files of the song and give download links to the other clubs.

Australia wins the 2017 edition

The 2017 OGAE Song Contest was the 32nd edition, and was organised by OGAE Spain, since Spain won last year’s contest with Alvaro Soler’s “Sofia”. This year, 28 countries took part, including Andorra, Turkey and Slovakia, countries that don’t participate in Eurovision anymore. OGAE Rest of the World represented New-Zealand this year, with the song Heartlines from the duo Broods.
Here is the Top 5:

1. Australia – Dami Im | Fighting For Love – 232 points
2. United Kingdom – Clean Bandit ft. Sean Paul & Anne Marie | Rockabye – 207 points
3. Ireland – Kygo ft. Kodaline | Raging – 195 points
4. Russia – Sergey Lazarov | Ideal World – 127 points
5. Portugal – Maskitsol ft. Mariza | Livre – 100 points

Norway finished last with no points. OGAE Norway sent Fy Faen by Hkeem & Temur.
Here is the official scoreboard (without the names of the artists nor the songs).

=> The list of the participants can be found here. The full voting can be found there. <=
Australia won with the song Fighting For Love by Dami Im, well-known for participating in Eurovision 2016, where she finished 2nd. This is the first victory for Australia in the OGAE Song Contest, and it’s only its 2nd participation (or 3rd, since OGAE Rest of the World sent an Australian song in 2007). It is also the first Australian victory in any Eurovision-related contest (the ESC and JESC included).
Dami Im was not the only former Eurovision artist participating this year. Marta Jandová (Czech Republic 2015), Sergey Lazarov (Russia 2016), Ira Losco (Malta 2001 & 2016), Sirusho (Armenia 2008) and Urban Trad (Belgium 2003) were also participating. Many others also took part in National Selections, like Angelika Pushnova (who tried to represent Belarus in 2017) or Magnus Carlsson (who participated in several editions of Melodifestivalen, by himself or with the band Alcazar).

Only one more contest to go

Now that the OGAE Song Contest is over, there is only one OGAE contest left this year: the OGAE Video Contest. The 2017 edition is organised by OGAE UK, after their victory last year with Coldplay’s Hymn For The Weekend. Voting will start on November 1st, and last a month. The club will announce the results on December 20th, thus finally ending the 2017 Eurovision year.
But fear not: the day after, Albania’s national selection for Eurovision, Festivali i Kengës will start. And we will enter a new Eurovision year!
What do you think? Did you vote? Do you like the winner, or was your favorite someone else? Tell us on the comments below or on social media at @escxtra!