Jurijus wins Heat 3 of Eurovizijos Atranka, Monika Marija in third place

Jurijus and his song ‘Run with the lions’ has won the third heat of Eurovizijos Atranka in Lithuania. Former The Voice of Lithuania-winner Monika Marija finished in third place. 2009 participant Sasha Song has been fined for his no-show at the filming of Lithuania’s Eurovision selection show.

Last year Monika Marija reached the final of the competition in Vilnius with the song ‘The Truth’. This time she hopes to win the full competition with ‘Criminal’, but she has a slow start in her first heat. The haircut from Monika Marija was critized by the jury as distracting. She finished in second place at the jury vote, and third place with the televote, behind Jurijus who won both and Jurgis (ESC 2010) and Erica Jennings (ESC 2001), who teamed up for the song ‘Sing!’.

Sasha Song represented Lithuania in 2009 with the song ‘Love’, but he decided to withdraw: “It is a pity, but I had to withdraw because of no reason for me – I didn’t get the right arrangement from the producer at the agreed time,” he tells TV3.

The artists were judged by a jury panel made up of Ramūnas Zilnys, Vilius Alesius, and Jurga Šeduikytė. This heat gave us the last six qualifiers for the next round, which are listed with the letters SF below: