Russia out of Eurovision 2018 final

Russia has suffered a shock elimination from Eurovision in Thursday's second semi-final.

It will be the first time the country has not qualified since 1998, going back to before the semi-final stage of the competition was introduced, BBC News reports.

Australia, Denmark and Hungary are among the countries to have gone through to Saturday's grand final.

The event was held in Lisbon and also saw Norway's Alexander Rybak - who won the competition in 2009 - qualify.


One country which won't see Saturday's final is China, after the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) barred one of the country's most popular TV channels from broadcasting it after Mango TV censored LGBT elements of the first semi-final on Tuesday.

Russia's act, Julia Samoylova, was supposed to take part in 2017 but was unable to do so after Russia did not participate, when the event was held in Ukraine. She appeared instead this year, but was unable to progress beyond the semi-final.

Poland was also eliminated - despite their song Light Me Up being well-liked and well-received in Lisbon's Altice Arena.

The UK automatically qualifies for Saturday's grand final.

Underdogs Slovenia were also among those selected to compete in the final, where singer Lea Sirk will be hoping to better her country's 2001 placing of seventh.

Rybak opened the proceedings to raptures from the stadium - clearly still enjoying a large fan base following his Fairytale win nine years ago.

Another favourite of the night, Rasmussen, came not long after with their rousing Viking anthem, which saw the crowd singing along followed by a huge send-off at the end.

But the best reception of the night went to Australia's Jessica Mauboy, who gave an impassioned performance of her song We Got Love. The audience almost took the roof off for the Darwin singer, who looked truly overwhelmed by the response, after she finished.

It seems that the performance carried over to the audience at home as well, with Twitter users commenting on Jessica's energy and "presence".