Eurovision 2024: Olly Alexander dealt crushing blow hours before UK act takes to stage
The Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 takes place tonight and Olly Alexander will take to the stage 13th to perform his single Dizzy. He is hoping to place highly on the leaderboard following on from Sam Ryder's success in 2022.
However, bookmakers think Olly could be receiving nil points as he is an outsider at 150/1 to win the Song contestant. The UK is just 3/1 to finish in last place and 8/1 to score 0 points this year.
At the top of the outright betting, Croatia are the 4/5 favourites, Israel are next best at 2/1, while Switzerland are 6/1. Coral's John Hill said:
“We are not expecting it to be a great night for Olly Alexander, as the UK is more likely to finish with 0 points than win the competition, according to our odds.
"This is one of the biggest prices the UK has ever been to win Eurovision, and patriotic punters are favouring other nations this year, including Ireland, who have attracted much more interest. Croatia go into the event as the red-hot favourites, but we have also seen strong support for Israel since their semi-final performance."
Despite the latest odds, Eurovision host Graham Norton thinks Olly has an advantage over this year's competitors. He told the BBC: "Olly has already done all the things that it’s impossible to prepare someone for.
"He has played to huge crowds, he can relate to the cameras, and he is used to high pressure situations. Add to that, the fact that the song is a massive bop and I think we could do really well this year."
Unfortunately during the first semi-final, Olly suffered a wardrobe malfunction when his mic pack fell off his costume. However, he recovered quickly.
Speaking on Radio 2 of the incident, Olly said: "I did have a slight wardrobe malfunction, in that my mic pack fell off in the second chorus. So I was confused and stressed by that."
But despite the blip, he's happy to be in Sweden representing the United Kingdom. "The thing about being here in Malmö, at the arena, is there's a lot of rehearsal," he shared. "It's just like a military operation. So to do it properly, in front of the cameras, with an audience, was fun. The atmosphere ramps up."
Meanwhile, former Eurovision winner Cheryl Baker told Heart Bingo she will be rooting for Olly but doesn't think he has a chance of winning. She explained: "I love Olly Alexander’s voice and the production is going to be amazing and I’m absolutely sure he’s not going to get ‘nul point’, but it’s not a winning song unfortunately.
"I think his performance will be, his voice will be, but you’ve got to have all three to win and the song isn’t good enough. It’s an easy thing to say that it needs a key change but it does lift a song, and in Eurovision you need it to be really noticeable, so Olly should have put a couple of key changes in there.
"I don’t know why he didn’t. You get to the chorus, but there’s no key change! The song doesn’t progress the way it should and that’s a problem. I think he’ll finish midtable. The jury might keep him in the top five which would be fantastic but the public vote will bring him back down unfortunately. I’d like to think Olly could be top five but in reality I don’t think that will happen. But I’m obviously really rooting for the UK!"
