Vienna: Delta Goodrem is thrilled with the result after Australia placed fourth in the 70th annual Eurovision Song Contest, won by Bulgaria in a nail-biting final count, saying she felt the nation’s support for her during her stunning performance.

The result on Sunday morning AEST came after a four-hour telecast and a week of Eurovision celebrations in Vienna, Austria, in which Australia was catapulted to the centre of the story.

In a photo-finish, Australia, Israel, France and Italy dominated the leaderboard until the global TV audience votes were added. The final block of votes handed victory to Bulgaria, pushed Israel into second place, Romania into third place and Australia into fourth place.

When Bulgaria was named the winner with the bouncy and addictive Bangaranga sung by Dara, the Wiener Stadthalle erupted into applause and cheering. In a field of 35 competing countries, Australia’s result of fourth place is an extraordinary result.

The final scores were Bulgaria at the top of the leaderboard with 516 points, followed by Israel (343), Romania (296), Australia (287), Italy (281), Finland (279), Denmark (243), Moldova (226), Ukraine (221) and Greece (220).

The final moments of the count turned into a nail-biter as Noam Bettan brought Israel into the lead after securing a large audience vote of 220 points, before Bulgaria romped home with an audience vote of 312 points. Booing could be heard in the arena, which was audible during the broadcast, as their scores were read out. Five countries withdrew from the competition before it started in protest against Israel’s inclusion, following the war in Gaza.

In historical terms, it is Australia’s second-best performance (Dami Im came second in 2015). And for context: more than a dozen European countries did not survive a brutal semi-final round to make it into the grand final.

Speaking backstage after the grand final, Goodrem said: “I’m absolutely stoked…

“I am honoured to have hit the stage, that iconic Eurovision stage. I am so blown away by the love and support. I don’t even know how to say thank you. I felt the country with me. All I wanted to do was do my very best and feel that it was a great day. It’s a bit of a heart-starter out there.”

Goodrem described the journey to the Eurovision stage as one she was thankful for. “I am blown away, I did not know what to expect, it was a wild adventure,” she said. “I led with passion, and it’s been more incredible than I could have possibly imagined. Coming off stage, the emotional part was … getting that release after the pressure cooker. Now I just feel I will take a moment to enjoy what this adventure was.”

Delta Goodrem performs her song, Eclipse, during the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna.© AP Photo/Martin Meissner

The 41-year-old Sydney-born star said the experience, and the elevation of her stagecraft at Eurovision, would shape her next career steps. “I feel like the past few years, I have been hitting the road a bit more. That’s my favourite thing to do. We like to have emotion, but we like to have a lot of fun, standing on a piano … but now I am thinking in my next shows, there’s going to have to be a lift out of my piano,” she added referring to how she rose above the Eurovision audience on an ascending platform.

For Goodrem, this was a performance for the ages, and confirmation of her maturation as an artist. Already an accomplished singer-songwriter-instrumentalist, Eclipse is the apotheosis of her stagecraft: explosive, majestic and, to the 16,000-strong crowd in the arena, quite simply mesmerising.

She received a pat on the back from the country’s Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, shortly after the results landed. “Well done, Delta Goodrem. You did Australia proud,” he wrote on Instagram alongside a photo of Goodrem in all her golden glory.

Courtney Act, who co-hosted SBS’ Eurovision coverage this year, shared their love for Goodrem on social media shortly after her dazzling finale performance. “That was so amazing. I didn’t know it was possible for that to be any better than the semi-final, but somehow Delta Goodrem added another layer of brilliance to that joyous performance.”

Act said live on SBS at the end of the broadcast: “Oh Australia, we’re with you. We came fourth. I know Aussies were feeling the hope – we were feeling the hope – so I know you must be feeling crestfallen right now.”

Im, who represented Australia at Eurovision in 2016, also showered Goodrem with praise following her finale performance, telling her Instagram followers it was “even better than the semi – perfection”.

The semi-final rounds of Eurovision are watched by about 35 to 40 million people. Like other global events such as the Oscars, the global TV audience figure is a somewhat nebulous calculation of uncertain mathematical provenance. Best estimates say upwards of 150 million people.

Whatever the final number, it is certainly the biggest audience of Goodrem’s professional career. What makes that calculus so extraordinary is that Goodrem did not just meet the moment, she exceeded it in every way. A hefty fusion of acoustic and visual artistry, Goodrem moved through it as though she were light as air.

Delta Goodrem is clipped into a harness during her performance before rising up over her piano on a Versa Ribbon Lift.© AP Photo/Martin Meissner

Behind the diaphanous folds of her hand-crafted gold gown – a dazzling assembly of 7000 Swarovski crystals which took more than 500 hours to sew by hand – by Sydney label Velani, designed by Nicky Apostolopoulos, was a piece of innovative stage technology known as a Versa Ribbon Lift; the same technology was used by the queen of stagecraft, Beyoncé.

The performance itself took Goodrem through layers of moon shadow, to an intersection of moon and sun at the heart of the eclipse, and finally – after a piano intermezzo played in fortissimo with a cheeky smile – into an explosion of gold that turned the arena into a shimmering ocean of fire.

Designed by Dan Shipton and Ross Nicholson, the effect was extraordinary. Goodrem knew it, her confidence clearly on display. And the audience knew it, erupting into rapturous applause. Even in the media centre, backstage, a 1000-strong crowd of journalists from around the world applauded and cheered. Win or place, whatever happens now, this was truly a winning performance.

That reaction also underlined Goodrem’s months-long campaign for Eurovision love, that took her from Australia to the “pre-party” season in Europe in March and April, performing at concerts in Amsterdam and Oslo, and pressing the flesh with Eurovision fans.

For Australia, the Eurovision journey is as existential as it is colourful. Our place in a European music competition is always up for debate, even as it seems like a natural expression of our European history and the plain ambition of the European Broadcasting Union to turn Eurovision itself into a global brand.

Goodrem’s campaign this year will momentarily silence the critics who found voice recently, as a number of Australian entrants had their Eurovision campaigns cut short, cut down in the semi-finals.

This year’s first semi-final sent Greece, Finland, Belgium, Sweden, Moldova, Israel, Serbia, Croatia, Lithuania and Portugal to the final. The second sent through Bulgaria, Ukraine, Norway, Romania, Malta, Cyprus, Albania, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Australia.

In the grand final, those 20 countries were up against four of the so-called “Big Five” – the biggest members of the European Broadcasting Union, France, Germany, Italy and the UK – and the host country, Austria, all of whom book final slots automatically.

The fifth member of the Big Five, Spain, withdrew in protest over the inclusion of Israel.

Four other countries joined the boycott: Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Slovenia, reflecting a deeply felt schism that illuminated a growing problem for the EBU: how it handles the delicate relationship between soft diplomacy and the perception that Eurovision is being used as a political proxy.

The Eurovision grand final is, in the final count, a four-hour-long marathon of song, spectacle and abacus-style mathematics.

The contest’s antiquated scoring system, which involves crossing from the main stage in the host country to each of the participating countries for them to assign scores from two to eight, 10 and 12 points to the songs, is one of the most beloved aspects of the broadcast.

The 2026 Eurovision competition featured artists and songs from 35 countries performing in 20 languages.