The Song 3

The Song 3 was the third edition of the The Song. The contest was hosted in Cyprus, following the country's victory at the second edition in Amsterdam, Netherlands, with the song "Ónira", performed by Evangelia. The contest was held at the Eleftheria Indoor Hall, and consisted of two semi-finals on 28 August and 30 August, and a final on 24 September 2022. The three live shows were presented by Cypriot presenters Elita Michailidou, Loukas Hamatsos and Tasos Trifonos.

Forty-seven countries participated in the third edition of the contest including Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan who made their debut appearance, with Croatia and Georgia returning to the contest. Hungary, Latvia, Malta and San Marino failed to qualify from the pre-qualification round and they were forced to withdraw from this edition.

The winner was Italy with the song "Guess Who's Back" performed by Il Tre, written by Guido Luigi Senia, Michael Menisci and Tom Beaver. The Czech Republic, Australia, Ireland, Israel and Georgia completed the top 6 of the edition.

Location
Nicosia is the largest city, capital, and seat of government of Cyprus. It is located near the centre of the Mesaoria plain, on the banks of the River Pedieos.

According to Greek mythology, Nicosia (Lefkosia in Greek) was a siren, one of the daughters of Acheloos and Melpomene and its name translates as "White State" or city of White Gods.

Nicosia is the southeasternmost of all EU member states' capitals. It has been continuously inhabited for over 4,500 years and has been the capital of Cyprus since the 10th century. The Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities of Nicosia segregated into the south and north of the city respectively in early 1964, following the fighting of the Cyprus crisis of 1963–64 that broke out in the city. This separation became a militarised border between the Republic of Cyprus and Northern Cyprus after Turkey invaded the island of Cyprus in 1974, occupying the north of the island, including northern Nicosia. Today North Nicosia is the capital of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a state recognized only by Turkey.

Apart from its legislative and administrative functions, Nicosia has established itself as the island's financial capital and its main international business centre. In 2018, Nicosia was the 32nd richest city in the world in relative purchasing power.

The earliest mention of Nicosia is in the clay prism of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon in 672 BC. This is a mention to the city-state of Ledra located on the site of Nicosia, and the city is named "Lidir". The name Ledra and variations (such as Ledroi) remained in use as late as 392 AD, when it was used in writing by Saint Jerome. However, that text also refers the city as "Leucotheon", and early Christian sources of this period are the first to use similar variations of the name Lefkosia (e.g. Leuteonos). The origin of the name "Lefkosia" is considered by scholars to be a "toponymic puzzle". The name is recorded in the majority of Byzantine sources as "Leukousia", and it is accepted in literature that the name "most probably" derives from the Greek phrase "leuke ousia" ("white estate").

Venue
Eleftheria Athletic Center, officially named Tassos Papadopoulos Eleftheria Indoor Hall is an indoor arena that is located besides Makario Stadium and Lefkotheo Indoor Hall in Engomi, Nicosia, Cyprus.

The hall is mainly used for basketball events, although it can also be used for badminton, gymnastics, karate, taekwondo, handball, squash, volleyball, judo, futsal and table tennis. It is sometimes also used for national celebrations, for the declaration of the new President of Cyprus, and for musical concerts. The arena is named after Tassos Papadopoulos, the fifth President of the Republic of Cyprus, who was in office from February 28, 2003, to February 28, 2008. Currently, the arena has a capacity of around 6,800 seats, and it is the biggest indoor sports hall on the island of Cyprus.

Presenters
The Cypriot broadcaster & the EBU on 1st August announced the three presenters that will host the shows of the third edition of The Song. The Cypriot presenters were Elita Michailidou, Loukas Hamatsos and Tasos Trifonos. The first semi-final was hosted by Elita Michailidou, the second semi-final was hosted by Loukas Hamatsos and Tasos Trifonos hosted the grand final.

Format
The competition consisted of two semi-finals and a final, a format which has been in use since the first edition. The ten countries with the highest scores in each semi-final qualified to the final where they joined the host nation Cyprus, the countries that placed second to sixth in the previous edition (known as the "Big Five"): Australia, Belgium,Ireland Monaco and Portugal, and Kazakhstan which was invited this edition. Each participating country had their own national jury. The combination of the juries' full ranking produced an overall ranking of all competing entries. The song which scored the highest overall rank received 12 points, while the tenth-best ranked song received one point.

Pre-Qualification
The European Broadcaster Union (EBU) announced that the limit of entries for each edition would be the 46 participants. There were 47 participants this edition due to the invitation extended to Kazakhstan. Because of the amount of confirmations the EBU created a pre-qualification round that takes place every edition before the actual contest. Two countries every edition qualify from the pre-qualification round to the semi-finals while the others are eliminated. This edition the participating countries of the pre-qualification round were Belarus, Hungary, Latvia, Lebanon, Malta, San Marino and Slovenia. The two qualifiers were Lebanon and Slovenia

Semi-final allocation draw
The draw that determined the semi-final allocation was held on 19th August 2022. The forty countries were divided into six pots, based on their geographical place. Each time a country was drawn from the pot, its semi-final was determined.

The six pots were the following:

Participating Countries
Forty-seven countries participated in the third edition of the contest including Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan that made their debut appearance with Croatia and Georgia returning in the contest. Hungary, Latvia, Malta and San Marino failed to qualify from the pre-qualification round and they were forced to withdraw from this edition. The submissions for the third edition opened on 24th July 2022 while the deadline for the entries submission was on 15 August 2022.

Returning artists
The contest featured two returning artists: sanah had previously represented Poland in the first edition alongside Daria Zawiałow; Camille had represented Belgium in the second edition. Heyder for Azerbaijan who previously participated in the second edition with the song "Spacestar", which placed in 5th position in the pre-qualifying round.

Semi-final 1
The first semi-final took place on 28 August 2022. Twenty countries participated in the first semi-final. Those countries plus Cyprus, Ireland and Portugal voted in this semi-final. The highlighted countries qualified for the final. {{Legend|navajowhite|Qualifiers}}

Semi-final 2
The second semi-final took place on 30 August 2022. Twenty countries participated in the second semi-final. Those countries plus Australia, Belgium and Monaco voted in this semi-final. The highlighted countries qualified for the final. {{Legend|navajowhite|Qualifiers}}

Final
The final took place on 24 September 2022. Twenty-seven countries participated in the final.{{Legend|gold|Winner}}

Scoreboard
Full results including televoting and results from the individual jury members were released shortly after the announcement of the winner.

Semi-final 1
{{Legend|navajowhite|Qualifiers}}

12 points
Below is a summary of the maximum 12 points each country awarded to another in the semi-final 1:

Semi-final 2
{{Legend|navajowhite|Qualifiers}}

12 points
Below is a summary of the maximum 12 points each country awarded to another in the semi-final 2:

Final
{{Legend|gold|Winner}}

12 points
Below is a summary of the maximum 12 points each country awarded to another in the final:

Spokespersons
The spokespersons announced the 12-point score from their respective country's national jury in the following order:


 * 1) – Saoirse-Monica Jackson
 * 2) – Robert Lewandowski
 * 3) – Artem Pivovarov
 * 4) – Pommelien Thijs
 * 5) – Dimash Kudaibergen
 * 6) – Tarja Turunen
 * 7) – Knez
 * 8) – Pia Maria
 * 9) – Victoria

 – Stéphane Legar  – Tobias Huebenthal  – Frenchy  – Manana Kokhreidze  – Mia Khalifa  – Mihai Trăistariu  – Mani Orrason  – Zdeněk Štybar  – Benjamin Amaru</li> </ol>

 – Marina</li>  – Aurora</li>  – Silvan Areg</li>  – Indrek Vaheoja</li>  – Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa</li>  – Elodie</li>  – Celeste</li>  – Cazzi Opeia</li>  – Sandro</li> </ol>

Other countries


Countries that are active members of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) are also eligible to participate in The Song. As in every edition, an invitation to all the members have been sent in order to confirm whether they will participate or not. The following list of countries declined stating their reasons as shown below.

Rigging of national selection
On 12 August 2022, the EBU noticed unusual voting patters in the Cypriot national selection results. The head of delegation of Cyprus was confronted about the allegations and not being able to repeal any of the accusations, the Cypriot national selection results were deemed invalid and the winning entry, "Close" by Ryan Ennis featuring Michaela was disqualified from competing. The new head of delegation of Cyprus chose internally the Cypriot-British duo MakeYouKnowLove with the song "Don't Need Heaven".

Removal from position
A few hours later on 12 August 2022, it was also discovered that the Cypriot head of delegation had brought in alt accounts to the server in order to gain a significant unfair advantage and thus was removed from position as head of delegation of Cyprus, Denmark and Lebanon. New heads of delegation were chosen for the previously mentioned countries alongside new entries. Ida Laurberg, who won the Danish national selection with "Grayzone" was replaced by TBA and Anthony Keyrouz and ZANA, who were supposed to represent Lebanon in the pre-qualification round with "Hush Hush (Don't Be Shy)" were replaced by Maro with the song "Hellstorm". The Cypriot head of delegation was then banned from the server.

Disqualification of the Russian entry
On 23 July 2022, the Russian broadcaster announced that Katya Zamolodchikova would represent Russia with the song "Ding Dong!" featuring a guest appearance from Trixie Mattel, however, moments later the EBU announced that the entry was disqualified due to the song being a homage to Ukrainian singer LOBODA's song "Boom boom", featuring vocals from PHARAOH.

Withdrawal of new entry
A few hours later on 23 July 2022, it was announced that Yulianna Karaulova would instead represent the Russian nation with her song "No1". On 24 July, it was announced that Karaulova would be withdrawn as the official Russian entry and a new national selection would be held to determine the entrant. Karaulova ended up winning the national selection and went onto represent Russia with "No1".

Removal of votes
On 29 August 2022, following submission of the votes from the Kazakh delegation for the second semi-final, suspicions arose that the Kazakh delegation member was randomly allocating points to certain songs. As a result of this, Kazakhstan was removed as a jury member for both semi-finals. Their votes were subsequently counted as part of the Broadcasters' televoting.

Replacement of delegation jury member
On 4 September 2022, the EBU noticed that the jury votes submitted for the final, greatly varied from the personal rankings made by the jury member. The jury member was unable to sufficiently explain and justify the significant difference between the allocated points and the personal rankings. As a result, Kazakhstan will receive a 50% deduction of their televoting result, and the jury member was replaced by a member of the audience. The previous jury member's voting was also removed from the Broadcasters' televoting for both semi-finals. These removal of votes, whilst it did change certain rankings, did not change the qualifiers from either semi-final.

The Song Awards
The Song Awards, first held in first edition, saw competing acts celebrated across ten categories. Shortlists were determined by major The Song fansites and podcasts, with editors and presenters nominating their favourites in each category; the final result was determined by followers of the official The Song Instagram channel who cast votes for their favourite act.

Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger (‡). Runners-up are indicated with a single dagger (†).