Eurovision Dance Contest 2007


The Eurovision Dance Contest 2007 was the inaugural edition of the Eurovision Dance Contest, a dance competition co-production between the European Broadcasting Union and host broadcaster BBC. The first ever pan-European dance competition was held on 1 September 2007 in London, United Kingdom with the participation of 16 countries.
Viewers cast their votes by telephone and SMS text message voting on each couple's two dances - the first being ballroom or Latin with the second being freestyle, with a "national" flavour. Professional dance couples were allowed to enter the competition. Comedian Graham Norton and Claudia Winkleman presented the 2007 contest from the BBC Television Centre in London.
The first ever winners of the contest were Katja Koukkula and Jussi Väänänen of Finland who received a total of 132 points. 2nd place went to Ukraine, 3rd to Ireland, 4th to Poland and 5th place to Austria following a tie with Portugal, who also received 74 points.

Location

The host venue was the BBC Television Centre, White City, London, which opened in 1960. It is one of the most readily recognisable facilities of its type having appeared as the backdrop for many BBC programmes. It remained to be one of the largest such facilities in the world until it closed in March 2013.

Production

The contest was hosted by the BBC, and was a co-production by Splash Media - run by the developers of its successful Strictly Come Dancing format - and sports production house Sunset + Vine - with help from the International DanceSport Federation and in association with the European Broadcasting Union.
The contest was broadcast in English and French languages, although France did not take part. Each broadcaster also had the option of providing its own commentators at the event. UK commentators were Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli.

Participants

The Croatian broadcaster HRT had expressed an interest in taking part, but pulled out due to costs and scheduling problems.
As well as those countries that took part, Albania, Armenia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Iceland, Israel and Macedonia also broadcast the contest despite not taking part in it, with possibility to join it in 2008.
The running order for the 16 participants was announced on 6 August 2007 and had been determined in two steps. In the first round, the participating countries were drawn into groups, under supervision of an auditor. In the second round, the producers of the contest determined the final running order within the drawn groups to assure variety in the live show.
Due to the forest fires in Greece, the Greek national broadcaster ERT did not air the show live and therefore used a back-up jury instead of televoting.
Austria and Portugal both finished with the same number of points, however, Austria received points from every other participating nation thus receiving points from more countries than Portugal, hence Austria took 5th place.
DrawCountryDancersDance StylesPlacePoints
01Denise Biellmann and Sven NinnemannPaso Doble and Swing160
02Mariya Sittel and Vladislav BorodinovRumba and Paso Doble772
03Alexandra Matteman and Redmond ValkCha-Cha-Cha and Rumba1234
04Camilla Dallerup and Brendan ColeRumba and Freestyle1518
05Kelly and Andy KainzJive and Paso Doble574
06Wolke Hegenbarth and Oliver SeefeldtSamba dance and Freestyle859
07Ourania Kolliou and Spiros PavlidisJive and Sirtaki1331
08Gabrielė Valiukaitė and Gintaras SvistunavičiusPaso Doble and Traditional Lithuanian Folk Dance1135
09Amagoya Benlloch and Abraham MartinezCha-Cha-Cha and Paso Doble1038
10Nicola Byrne and Mick DoneganJive and Fandango395
11Katarzyna Cichopek and Marcin HakielCha-Cha-Cha and Showdance484
12Mette Skou Elkjær and David JørgensenRumba and Showdance938
13Sónia Araújo and Ricardo SilvaJive and Tango674
14Yulia Okropiridze and Illya SydorenkoQuickstep and Showdance2121
15Cecilia Ehrling and Martin LidbergPaso Doble and Disco Fusion1423
16Katja Koukkula and Jussi VäänänenRumba and Paso Doble1132

Scoreboard

The following 16 countries took part, and received the scores shown below.

12 points

Below is a summary of all 12 points in the contest:
N.ContestantNation giving 12 points
5UkraineFinland, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, United Kingdom
3FinlandAustria, Netherlands, Sweden
2PortugalSpain, Switzerland
1IrelandDenmark
1LithuaniaIreland
1NetherlandsGreece
1PolandGermany
1RussiaUkraine
1SpainPortugal

International broadcasts and voting

Voting and spokespersons

The order in which each country announced their votes was done in order of performance. The spokespersons are shown alongside each country.
  1. - :de:Cécile Bähler|Cécile Bähler
  2. - :ru:Кремер, Лика Гидоновна|Like Kremer
  3. - :nl:Marcus van Teijlingen|Marcus van Teijlingen
  4. - Kirsty Gallagher
  5. - :de:Peter L. Eppinger|Peter L. Eppinger
  6. - Alice Kessler and Ellen Kessler
  7. - George Amyras
  8. - :lt:Lavija Šurnaitė-Kairienė|Lavija Šurnaitė-Kairienė
  9. - :es:Jesús Álvarez Cervantes|Jesús Álvarez
  10. - Pamela Flood
  11. - :pl:Ewelina Kopic|Ewelina Kopic
  12. - :da:Louise Wolff|Louise Wolff
  13. - :pt:Marta Leite de Castro|Marta Leite de Castro
  14. - Svetoslav Vlokh
  15. - :sv:Ulrica Bengtsson|Ulrica Bengtsson
  16. - :fi:Johanna Pirttilahti|Johanna Pirttilahti

    Commentators

Most countries sent commentators to London or commentated from their own country, in order to add insight to the participants and, if necessary, provide voting information.

Participating countries