Sam Ryder has scored the UK’s best Eurovision result in 24 years, and fans cannot get over it.
The singer finished second on the leaderboard after performing his song Space Man at the Song Contest held in Turin, Italy, on Saturday night.
It proved to be a remarkable reversal of fortunes following last year’s dreaded nul points, and is the highest the UK has placed since 1998, when Imaani’s Where Are You? finished just behind Israel’s Dana International, who won with her song Diva.
The United Kingdom had led the vote for most of Saturday night’s results after Sam’s performance came out on top of the jury vote.
However, the public overwhelmingly backed Ukraine, who won the competition with 631 points on the leaderboard, with the UK securing 466 points.
On social media, people revelled in our country finally doing well in the contest again:
Following the result, Sam celebrated “destroying the stigma” around the UK and Eurovision, as he partied with the BBC’s Eurovision semi-final commentators Scott Mills and Rylan Clark.
In a video Scott posted, he said: “We did it, we just destroyed the stigma! Thanks everyone for supporting. That was an incredible, incredible, rewarding journey. I hope you enjoyed coming along on it.”
Following the result, UK prime minister Boris Johnson said he was “incredibly proud” of Sam Ryder and how “he brilliantly represented the UK”.