February 14, 2021 - Albina Grčić is the winner of this year's Dora, the Croatian selection for Eurovision, and will represent Croatia in the Netherlands at the Eurovision Song Contest!
Jutarnji List reports that with the song "Tick-Tock" written by Branimir Mihaljević, Albina Grčić will represent Croatia in May at the Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam. The 22-year-old Split native and student of English language, literature, and history at the Faculty of Philosophy was both the jury and audience favorite in Opatija on Saturday night.
"I am not yet aware that I have won the Dora. All of this seems like a dream, and it is a beautiful dream in which I have invested a lot of effort and love. Thank you to my entire team, who have been a great support to me over the past months, from rehearsing to performing at Dora. I am happy that people recognized us. The competition was great, and if we had sent anyone else to Rotterdam, we would not have failed," she said after the victory.
Grčić was also remembered by the public as a finalist of last year's HRT show "The Voice." But unlike the heavy retro ballads that Albina sang during the popular TV spectacle, she presented herself in Opatija on Saturday in an entirely new, danceable, and much more modern light.
"My song ‘Tick-Tock’ is vastly different from what I’ve presented so far; I would say the genre has stayed the same, but the rhythm has changed a lot. This song is also my challenge and something I haven't had a chance to try before. One of my favorite verses is ‘You think you’re fancy but play the game my way...’. ‘Tick-Tock’ is a powerful song that represents my identity in my future career. In my opinion, she is exactly what I can imagine on the 2021 Eurovision stage. I think we have everything, and it is up to me to use it and present it to the Eurovision audience," added Albina, who celebrated the victory with a glass of champagne and showed that bookmakers should never be blindly trusted.
Namely, in recent weeks, they have ruthlessly favored second-placed Nina Kraljić, who performed in Opatija with the song "Rijeka" and the Alconost of the Balkans project.
The Croatian jury was led by Daniela Trbović, Barbara Kolar, Jelena Lešić, and Doris Pinčić, and the evening in Opatija was enhanced by Vesna Pisarović, a musician who performed twice at the Eurovision Song Contest - in 2002 in Tallinn with the song "Absolutely Safe" and won 11th place, and two years later as the author of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian song "In the disco", which placed ninth.
The winner of Dora was decided by the sum of the votes of the audience and the jury.
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