Estonia wins Eurovision Song Contest

Padar: Celebrating his win

COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- Estonia has won the 46th Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Everybody" sung by the duo of Tanel Padar and Dave Benton.

The pair, who follow in the footsteps of Abba, Celine Dion, Gina G and Nana Mouskouri, comfortably headed the 23-nation field with 198 points.

This year's 23 countries took part in the contest staged in Copenhagen, Denmark, in front of a live audience of more than 40,000.

An estimated 200 million people in 30 countries were expected to have watched the contest on TV.

Padar was part of the backing vocals for the Estonian artist Ines who previously represented Estonia at the contest.

This year he teamed up with Benton, who has worked with names like The Drifters, Tom Jones, Billy Ocean, Jose Felicano and The Platters.

Host nation Denmark was runner-up with "Never Ever Let You Go" by Rollo and King who got 177 points.

Greece came third with "Die For You" by Antique with 147 points.

Estonia's win easily beat the previous highest scoring winner, which was the UK's 1976 entry, Save All Your Kisses For Me, by Brotherhood of Man, which polled 164 points out of a possible 204.

The first Eurovision Song Contest was held in 1956 in Lugano, Switzerland when seven countries - Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, France and Luxembourg each presented two songs.

It was won by Swiss singer Lys Assia, who returned to the stage to forget her lines during a repeat performance.

Ireland has seen the most success with seven winners (four of them between 1992 and 1996). Britain has five winners, the most recent being Katrina and the Waves in 1997.

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