ISTANBUL - Ukraine won the 49th Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday.
Singer Ruslana Lyzichko of Ukraine who won the contest with her song ''Wild Dance'' told reporters after the contest that the first thing she did after returning to Ukraine would be doing as Russel Crowe in Gladiator. ''I will kneel in my homeland, take a piece of Ukrainian soil and kiss it.''
With its victory Ukraine earns the right to stage the 50th Eurovision Contest in 2005.
The Eurovision Song Contest, hosted for the first time by Turkey, winner of last year's event with Sertab Erener's song ''Every Way That I Can'', attracted an annual worldwide audience of more than 100 million people.
Accompanied by ''whirling dervish'' dancers, she opened the song contest with the song that won last year's show in Riga, Latvia.
Turkey's this year's song was mixture of romantic ballads and disco numbers with the youthful Athena, one of the country's best known bands, who play a mixture of ska and punk music.
They won the loudest applause of the night from an enthusiastic local crowd waving red and white Turkish flags.
Final results: (points in brackets)
1- Ukraine (280)
2- Serbia-Montenegro (263)
3- Greece (252)
4- Turkey (195)
5- Greek Cypriot side (170)
6- Sweden (170)
7- Albania (106)
8- Germany (93)
9- Bosnia Herzegovina (91)
10- Spain (87)
11- Russia (67)
12- Malta (50)
13- Croatia (50)
14- Macedonia (47)
15- France (40)
16- United Kingdom (29)
17- Poland (27)
18- Romania (18)
19- Iceland (16)
20- Holland (11)
21- Austria (9)
22- Belgium (7)
23- Ireland (7)
24- Norway (3)
(MS-UK) 16.05.2004