Latvia in the Eurovision Song Contest

Latvia has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 24 times since making its debut at the contest in 2000, where the song "My Star" performed by the group Brainstorm finished third. Latvia won the contest in 2002, with the song "I Wanna" by Marie N, defeating Malta by 12 points. Latvia is the second former Soviet country to win the contest. The 2003 contest was held in the Latvian capital Riga. The country achieved its third top 10 result in 2005, when "The War Is Not Over" by Walters and Kazha finished fifth. The Latvian participant broadcaster in the contest is Latvijas Televīzija (LTV), which select its entrant since 2015 with the national selection Supernova.

Latvia in the Eurovision Song Contest
Participating broadcaster	Latvijas Televīzija (LTV)
Participation summary
Appearances	24 (11 finals)
First appearance	2000
Highest placement	1st: 2002
Host	2003
Participation history 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Related articles
Supernova
External links
LTV page
Latvia's page at Eurovision.tv
For the most recent participation see Latvia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2024

Latvia did not participate in the final from 2009 to 2014, when they failed to qualify from the semi-finals for six consecutive years, including finishing last on three occasions, in 2009, 2010, and 2013.^[1][2] Latvia qualified for the final for the first time since 2008 at the 2015 contest with the song "Love Injected" by Aminata. Its sixth place in the final is Latvia's fourth top 10 finish and best result in the contest since 2005. Latvia made its 10th appearance in the final in 2016. After failing to qualify for the final from 2017 to 2023, it finally managed to qualify to the final in the 2024 contest with "Hollow" by Dons.

Latvia has the distinction of having finished last in the Eurovision semi-finals more than any other country. Since its introduction in 2004, Latvia has finished last in five semi-finals, with "Probka" by Intars Busulis (2009), "What For?" by Aisha (2010), "Here We Go" by PeR (2013), "Line" by Triana Park (2017), and "The Moon Is Rising" by Samanta Tīna (2021).

Participation

Latvijas Televīzija (LTV) is a full member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1 January 1993, thus eligible to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest since then. It has participated in the contest representing Latvia since its 45th edition in 2000.

LTV has chosen all its entrants in the contest through a national final, with the exception of "The Moon Is Rising" performed by Samanta Tīna in 2021.^{[lower-alpha 1]} Since 2015, the Latvian national selection is Supernova. Previously, the national selections were Eirodziesma (2000–2012) and Dziesma (2013–2014).

Participation overview

All of Latvia's entries have been performed in English, except for three entries. In 2004, "Dziesma par laimi" performed by Fomins and Kleins in Latvian, in 2007, "Questa notte" performed by Bonaparti.lv in Italian, and in 2009, Intars Busulis, having won the national selection Eirodziesma with "Sastrēgums" in Latvian, performed the song in Eurovision in Russian as "Probka".^[3]

Table key

1	First place
2	Second place
3	Third place
◁	Last place
X	Entry selected but did not compete
†	Upcoming event

Year	Artist	Song	Language	Final	Points	Semi	Points
2000	Brainstorm	"My Star"	English	3	136	No semi-finals
2001	Arnis Mednis	"Too Much"	English	18	16
2002	Marie N	"I Wanna"	English	1	176
2003	F.L.Y.	"Hello from Mars"	English	24	5
2004	Fomins and Kleins	"Dziesma par laimi"	Latvian	Failed to qualify		17	23
2005	Walters and Kazha	"The War Is Not Over"	English	5	153	10	85
2006	Vocal Group Cosmos	"I Hear Your Heart"	English	16	30	Top 11 in 2005 final[lower-alpha 2]
2007	Bonaparti.lv	"Questa notte"	Italian	16	54	5	168
2008	Pirates of the Sea	"Wolves of the Sea"	English	12	83	6	86
2009	Intars Busulis	"Probka" (Пробка)	Russian	Failed to qualify		19 ◁	7
2010	Aisha	"What For?"	English			17 ◁	11
2011	Musiqq	"Angel in Disguise"	English			17	25
2012	Anmary	"Beautiful Song"	English			16	17
2013	PeR	"Here We Go"	English			17 ◁	13
2014	Aarzemnieki	"Cake to Bake"	English			13	33
2015	Aminata	"Love Injected"	English	6	186	2	155
2016	Justs	"Heartbeat"	English	15	132	8	132
2017	Triana Park	"Line"	English	Failed to qualify		18 ◁	21
2018	Laura Rizzotto	"Funny Girl"	English			12	106
2019	Carousel	"That Night"	English			15	50
2020	Samanta Tīna	"Still Breathing"	English	Contest cancelled[lower-alpha 3] X
2021	Samanta Tīna	"The Moon Is Rising"	English	Failed to qualify		17 ◁	14
2022	Citi Zēni	"Eat Your Salad"	English			14	55
2023	Sudden Lights	"Aijā"	English, Latvian			11	34
2024	Dons	"Hollow"	English	16	64	7	72
2025	TBD February 2025 †[4][5]			Upcoming †

Hostings

Year	Location	Venue	Presenters
2003	Riga	Skonto Hall	Marija Naumova and Renārs Kaupers

Related involvement

Heads of delegation

Each participating broadcaster in the Eurovision Song Contest assigns a head of delegation as the EBU's contact person and the leader of their delegation at the event. The delegation, whose size can greatly vary, includes a head of press, the contestants, songwriters, composers, and backing vocalists, among others.^[6]

Year	Head of delegation	Ref.
2012–2020	Zita Kaminska	[7]
2021–2024	Guntars Gulbiņš	[8]

Commentators and spokespersons

Year	Commentator	Spokesperson	Ref.
1998	Kārlis Streips [lv]	Did not participate	[9][10][11]
1999			[12][13][14]
2000		Lauris Reiniks	[12][15]
2001		Renārs Kaupers	[16][17]
2002		Ēriks Niedra	[18][19]
2003		Ģirts Līcis	[20][21][22]
2004		Lauris Reiniks	[23][24]
2005		Marie N	[25][26]
2006		Mārtiņš Freimanis	[27][28][29]
2007		Janis Šipkevics	[30][31]
2008		Kristīne Virsnīte	[32][33][34]
2009		Roberto Meloni	[35]
2010		Kārlis Būmeisters
2011	Valters Frīdenbergs (all), Uģis Joksts (final)	Aisha	[36]
2012	Valters Frīdenbergs (all), Kārlis Būmeisters (final)	Valters Frīdenbergs	[37][38]
2013		Anmary	[39][40]
2014	Valters and Kaža	Ralfs Eilands	[41][42]
2015	Valters Frīdenbergs (all), Toms Grēviņš (final)	Markus Riva	[43][44]
2016		Toms Grēviņš	[45][46]
2017		Aminata Savadogo	[47][48]
2018	Toms Grēviņš (all), Magnuss Eriņš (final)	Dagmāra Legante	[46][49]
2019	Toms Grēviņš (all), Ketija Šēnberga (final)	Laura Rizzotto	[50][51]
2021	Toms Grēviņš (all), Marija Naumova (final)	Aminata Savadogo	[52][53][54][55]
2022	Toms Grēviņš (all), Lauris Reiniks (final)	Samanta Tīna	[56][57]
2023		Jānis Pētersons	[58][59][60]
2024		Andrejs Reinis Zitmanis	[61]

• 
  Karlis Streips is the first Latvian Eurovision commentator in history. He provided Eurovision Song Contest commentary until 2011
• 
  Valters Frīdenbergs was lead commentator from 2011 until his illness and death in 2018
• 
  Toms Grēviņš has been lead Latvian commentator since 2018

Photo gallery

• 
  Bonaparti.lv performing "Questa notte" in Helsinki (2007)
• 
  Pirates of the Sea performing "Wolves of the Sea" in Belgrade (2008)
• 
  Aisha in Oslo (2010)
• 
  Musiqq performing "Angel in Disguise" in Düsseldorf (2011)
• 
  PeR performing "Here We Go" in Malmö (2013)
• 
  Aarzemnieki performing "Cake to Bake" in Copenhagen (2014)
• 
  Aminata performing "Love Injected" in Vienna (2015)
• 
  Justs performing "Heartbeat" in Stockholm (2016)
• 
  Triana Park performing "Line" in Kyiv (2017)
• 
  Laura Rizzotto performing "Funny Girl" in Lisbon (2018)
• 
  Citi Zēni performing "Eat Your Salad" in Turin (2022)
• 
  Sudden Lights performing "Aijā" in Liverpool (2023)
• 
  Dons performing "Hollow" in Malmö (2024)

See also

• Latvia in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest – Junior version of the Eurovision Song Contest.
• Latvia in the Eurovision Young Dancers – A competition organised by the EBU for younger dancers aged between 16 and 21.
• Latvia in the Eurovision Young Musicians – A competition organised by the EBU for musicians aged 18 years and younger.

Notes

1. Tīna won Supernova in 2020, but that year's Eurovision was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and she was later internally selected to represent her country in the following year instead.
2. According to the then-Eurovision rules, the top ten non-Big Four countries from the previous year along with the Big Four automatically qualified for the grand final without having to compete in semi-finals. For example, if Germany and France placed inside the top ten, the 11th and 12th spots were advanced to next year's grand final along with all countries ranked in the top ten.
3. The 2020 contest was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

References

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External links

• Points to and from Latvia eurovisioncovers.co.uk