We all know that Ireland is the all-time Eurovision champion with their seven wins, but I’d been wondering who was in the lead before them? Sweden are in second place now, but three of those wins came after Ireland’s last. What about in, say, the 1970s?
Thanks to a bit of data animation I’ve thrown together, you can now answer that question while being entertained by flying bars. Watch the leaderboard change over time:
This shows that the countries in joint lead before Ireland’s mid-90s dominance were France and Luxembourg. And it also highlights that from 2001 to 2008 eight countries consecutively got their first ever wins – soon after the rule that they had to sing in their own languages was abolished…