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Chiara completes her Maltese hat-trick!

08 February 2009 at 01:57 CET

For the third time Chiara will represent Malta in the worlds most popular music contest, having already achieved third place with The One That I Love in Birmingham in the 1998 contest and second place with Angel in 2005 in Kyiv.

Tonights show from the Malta Fairs and Convention Centre opened with a ballet performance, and then hosts Pablo Micallef and Valerie Vella took to stage.  After the 20 songs were presented, these were narrowed down to a super final of three songs. Five international juries ranked all 20 songs in order of preference from 1 point up to 18, and then 20 and a maximum 22 points for their favourite song. A sixth set of votes, also with the same weighting as the juries votes was then added and these were based upon the televoting figures from the Semi Finals.

Amongst the international juries were Linda Martin, who won the 1992 Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland with the song Why Me, and Nicki French who represented the United Kingdom in 2000 in Stockholm with Don't play that song again.

The running order was as follows :- (Superfinalists highlighted)

01. Ha Hi Hu - The Elements
02. Kamikaze Lover - Baklava
03. Choose Your Number - J.Anvil
04. Where You Belong - Wayne Micallef
05. Tonight at the Opera - Classic Rebels
06. Promises - Vittorio & Dorothy
07. What If We - Chiara
08. One Million Ways - Rosman Pace
09. Before You Walk Away - Q
10. Let It Shine - Kylie Coleiro
11. Where Was I - Jamie Tonna
12. Life Is An Opera - Christine Barbara
13. Someday - Eleanor Cassar
14. Crossroads - Raquela
15. Mama - Miriam Christine
16. Avalon - Georgina & Ruth
17. Typical Me - Alison Ellul
18. The Song in Your Heart - Trilogy
19. Blue Sonata - Claudia Faniello
20. Butterfly Sky - Klinsmann

Hadise & Jade perform

Public televoting then would go on to decide whether Chiara, Eleanor Cassar or Q would get the Maltese ticket to Moscow.

Several guests performed in the interval acts while televotes were being cast and verified. These included last years Maltese representative Morena and this years Turkish entrant Hadise who performed her Moscow bound song Dum Tek Tek, and also Jade Ewen who performed the United Kingdom entry My Time.

After an anxious wait, the results were finally announced, and it emerged that Chiara was chosen by the Maltese public to represent them in Moscow.

Chiara will participate in the First Semi-Final of Europes favourtie TV show on Tuesday May 12th, and will be hoping to qualify for the final and go one better than her second place showing in Kyiv in 2005.