Junior Eurovision | Malta Confirms For Minsk But Cyprus Withdraws
So far in the run up to Junior Eurovision we have conformations, countries returning after over a decade away and even a country that shall be making their Junior debut in Minsk. But today we recieved news of one country that shall be coming back to the contest after competing in Tbilisi who sadly shall not be.
Firstly, Malta has confirmed that they shall be competed in the Junior contest in 2018, the two-time contest winners have a set a deadline of 20th July for children between the ages of 9 and 14 to enter, from which 16 will be selected for a national final show in August, hosted by their broadcaster TVM, the winner will then represent Malta in Belarus, it is not confirmed if the national finalists will be singing their intended song for Minsk or in fact covers of songs like they have in recent years. Last year Malta was represented by fan favourite Gianluca Cilia with the song "Dawra Tond" as fore-mentioned he headed to Georgia as a contendor for victory, however he ended the show placing ninth out of the sixteen acts, despite coming second which the voting online public.
The country however withdrawing and won't unfroutnately feature in Minsk is that of Cyprus, despite their success in Eurovision in Lisbon, achieving their highest ever placing, they shall not be competing in Junior Eurovision in 2018, they returned to the contest in 2016, when it took place in Valetta, Malta with George Michaelides and "Dance Floor" which sadly only placed 16th out of the 17 competing nations, the following year they tried again with Nicole Nicolaou and her bright and fun song "I Wanna Be A Star" despite opening the show and giving a solid performance, she finished last on the night, no official reasoning has been announced or cited from the Cypriot as to why they are withdrawing from the 2018 contest however.
