VIENNA (AP) – Austrian fans have enthusiastically welcomed the singer of classical training JJ at home at Vienna airport on Sunday after winning the 69th Eurovision Song With “Loved Love”.
While JJ crossed the door, hundreds of fans applauded, some played JJ’s song and others surrounded the new star, hugging him and asking for autographs.
The 24 -year -old counter -tenor, whose winning song combines operating and multi -European voices with a techno touch, and which also sings at the Opera of the Vienna State, held its trophy in a hand and a large bouquet of roses in the other. He smiled, wiped tears and said to the crowd “that victory is for you.”
JJ, whose full name is Johannes Pietsch, was the third winner of Austria in Eurovision, after the Drag Queen Barba Conchita Wurst in 2014 and Udo Jürgens in 1966.
“It is beyond my wildest dreams. It’s crazy,” said the singer when he put the Eurovision in the shape of a microphone-shaped glass trophy after his victory in the Swiss city of Basel on Saturday evening.
“All of Austria is happy”
The leaders of Austria were among the first to congratulate JJ. Sunday morning, the president of the country, Alexander van der Bellen, celebrated JJ in a video published on X.
“What a success! What a voice! What a show! ” he exclaimed. “All of Austria is happy.”
Chancellor Christian Stoecker wrote on X: “What a great success – my warmest congratulations for winning # ESC2025! JJ writes the history of Austrian music today!”
Vienna’s state opera has also expressed its joy to victory. “From the magic flute to the victory of the song competition is in a way a story that can only take place in Austria,” said opera director Bogdan Rosic, to the Austrian news agency APA.
Several Austrian cities quickly showed their interest in organizing the competition for next year. The mayor of Innsbruck, Johannes Anzengruber, told APA that “everything does not have to take place in Vienna. … Austria is greater than that”, and the cities of Oberwart in Burgenland and the Wels in Haute-Austria also threw their hat into the ring.
JJ himself said on Saturday evening that he hoped that Vienna would get the next ESC he would like to welcome with his mentor, Conchita Wurst.
A biting finish
Israeli singer Yuval Raphael came second to an exuberant celebration of music and unity which was shaded by the Gaza War and shaken by discord on the participation of Israel.
JJ won after a nail biting final that saw Raphael go up a massive public vote of his many fans for his anthémie “New Day Will Rise”. But she also faced demonstrations of pro-Palestinian demonstrators calling Israel War against Hamas in Gaza.
During a post-victory press conference, JJ said that the message of his song on unrelated romance was that “love is the strongest force on planet Earth and that love has persevered.
“Setttons love, the guys,” said JJ, who added that he was honored to be the first champion of Eurovision with the Philippine Heritage, as well as a proudly queer winner.
Eclectic and sometimes confusing
The biggest live music event in the world, which has united and divided Europeans since 1956, has reached its sequined brothel with a grand finale in Basel This offered a hammering electropop, an original rock and scandalous divas.
Proceedings of 26 countries – cut off from 37 participants in Two elimination semi-finals – played some 160 million viewers For the pop crown of the continent. No manure machine, flame jet or stunning display was spared by musicians who had three minutes to win millions of viewers who, as well as national juries of music professionals, chose the winner.
Tommy Cash from Estonia came third with his dance song Jokey so Italian “Espresso Macchiato”. Swedish Kaj entranceWho had been preferred to win with Jaunty Sauna Ode “Bara Bada Bastu”, arrived fourth.
Several very congratulated singers who had been lower than to win, notably the French singer Louane and the moving Dutch singer Claude.
The show was a celebration of eclectic and sometimes confusing musical tastes of Europe.
The war in Gaza darkened the competition
This year’s competition was turned to a second year by disputes on the participation of Israel. Raphael – A survivor of Hamas, on October 7, 2023, attacking a music festival in southern Israel which sparked the Gaza War – was encountered by a mixture of cheers and hoots as she sang.
Swiss broadcaster SRG SS said that a man and a woman had been arrested while trying to climb a barrier on the stage at the end of his song. He said that a crew member was struck by the painting launched by the pair. Raphael’s team said it was “agitated and upset”.
The cross -border attacks on October 7 of Hamas activists killed 1,200 people and around 250 were taken hostage to Gaza. According to the Ministry of Health of the territory, more than 52,800 people in Gaza were killed during the reprisal offensive in Israel.
The pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrations took place in Basel, although a much smaller scale than during last year’s event in Sweden.
The European Union of Broadcasting, or EBU, which manages Eurovision, has tightened the Code of Country Conduct this year, calling for participants to respect the values of Eurovision of “Universality, Diversity, Equality and Inclusion” and its political neutrality.
The director of Eurovision, Martin Green, told journalists that the objective of the organizers was to “restore a feeling of unity, calm and conviviality this year in a difficult world”. He said that the 37 national delegations “behaved impeccably”.
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Grieshaber reported in Berlin. The writer Associated Press Jill Lawless in Basel, Switzerland, contributed to this report.
