Estonia made their third

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...

appearance in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

. The preselection for the

Eurovision Song Contest 1997 The Eurovision Song Contest 1997 was the 42nd edition of the annual Eurovision Song Contest, held on 3 May 1997 at the Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. Organised by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and host broadcaster (RTÉ) and prese ...

final would follow the same format of previous years, with a judging panel selecting the song and artist that would represent Estonia in the final. The judges would eventually choose Maarja-Liis Ilus again, making her the first Estonian entrant to have made back-to-back appearances in the Eurovision Song Contest. In the final, Ilus finished 8th.

Before Eurovision

Eurolaul 1997

The final took place at the

Linnahall Linnahall ( et, Tallinna Linnahall, 'Tallinn City Hall') (originally the V. I. Lenin Palace of Culture and Sports) is a multi-purpose venue in Tallinn, Estonia. It is situated in the harbor, just beyond the walls of the Old Town, and was complete ...

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ' ...

, Estonia, and was hosted by

Marko Reikop Marko Reikop (born 19 June 1969 in Tallinn) is an Estonian TV host. He graduated from the Tallinn University on bibliography and is employed by radio and TV channels of the Estonian Public Broadcasting since 1991. He has presented the Estonian n ...

and

Anu Välba Anu Välba (born 14 May 1974) is an Estonian TV and radio host. She graduated from Tallinn University in television directing in 1998 but has been working as a hostess instead. Her credits include the TV morning programme " Terevisioon", weekly " ...

. Eight different songs were entered, with

Pearu Paulus Pearu Paulus (, born 3 November 1967) is an Estonian singer. He has participated in competition "Kaks takti ette". In 1994 he participated in Eurolaul (with Hedvig Hanson Hedvig Hanson (born 22 April 1975 in Tartu) is an Estonian jazz vocalis ...

, Hanna-Liina Võsa and Maarja-Liis Ilus performing on more than one entry. A panel of international judges voted on each song, with Ilus' "Keelatud maa" winning by a large margin of 32 points. Despite this large margin, a public telephone poll had voted the night before that "Aeg" by Ilus, Võsa and Anne Värvimann was the nation's favourite. Despite this, "Keelatud maa" became the Estonian entrant for the 1997 contest.

At Eurovision

Ahead of the contest, Estonia were considered one of the favourites among

bookmaker A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays off bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds. History The first bookmaker, Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795. Range of events Bookma ...

s to win the contest, featuring alongside the entries from , , and . On the night of the final, Ilus performed 13th, following Poland and preceding Bosnia and Herzegovina. She performed strongly again and at the end of the voting she received 82 points, placing 8th in a field of 25. The Estonian jury awarded its 12 points to France.

Voting

References

{{Eurovision Song Contest 1997

Countries in the Eurovision Song Contest 1997

Eurovision The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...