Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018
Cyprus participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 with the song "Fuego" written by Alex Papaconstantinou, Gerlado Sandell, Viktor Svensson, Anderz Wrethov and Didrick. The song was performed by Greek singer Eleni Foureira.
Eurovision Song Contest 2018 | ||||
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Country | Cyprus | |||
National selection | ||||
Selection process | Internal selection | |||
Selection date(s) | 1 February 2018 | |||
Selected entrant | Eleni Foureira | |||
Selected song | "Fuego" | |||
Selected songwriter(s) |
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Finals performance | ||||
Semi-final result | Qualified (2nd, 262 points) | |||
Final result | 2nd, 436 points | |||
Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest | ||||
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The Cypriot entry for the 2018 contest in Lisbon, Portugal was originally planned to be selected through a televised national final by the country's public broadcasting service Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) with half the points being given by a televote and the other half a jury vote, but this aspect was discarded in January 2018 and the broadcaster opted to choose the artist via an internal selection. Foureira was announced as the singer who would represent Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 on 1 February, and her song "Fuego" and the accompanying music video premiered on the CyBC evening news bulletin on 2 March. Foureira travelled to Stockholm in mid-April to prepare for the competition in Lisbon by meeting and working with her dancers.
Cyprus was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest, which took place on 8 May 2018. Performing as the closing entry of the show in position 19, "Fuego" was announced among the top 10 entries and therefore qualified to compete in the final on 12 May. It was later revealed that Cyprus placed second out of eighteen participating countries in the first semi-final with 262 points. In the final, Cyprus performed second-to-last in position twenty-five and received 436 points, finishing as runners-up to Israel in the island nation's best ever result of its Eurovision Song Contest history.