Georgia was represented at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2021 in Paris, France. The children's talent show Ranina was used for the fourth year in a row to select Georgia's representative, Niko Kajaia, who performed at the contest with the song "Let's Count the Smiles".[1] He finished 4th place out of 19 participating countries.
Prior to the 2021 contest, Georgia had participated in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest thirteen times since its debut in 2007,[2] and since then they have never missed a single contest. Georgia is also the most successful country in the competition, with three victories in 2008, 2011 and 2016.[3] In the 2020 contest, Sandra Gadelia represented Georgia with the song "You Are Not Alone" following her victory in the third season of Ranina, achieving 6th place out of 12 with 111 points.[4]
Before Junior Eurovision
Ranina
For the fourth year in a row, Georgia used an original children's talent show format, Ranina (Georgian:რანინა), as the selection method for their artist. Georgian broadcaster GPB confirmed that Ranina would be used for the fourth time on 2 September 2021, confirming that the show would begin on 11 September at 10pm GST.[5] The list of participants competing in the show was revealed on 6 September 2021, confirming that the show would once again have 10 competitors.[6]
At the end of Show 8, the semi-finalists were announced. The five participants who collected the most points throughout the four tours advanced to the next round. They are Nikoloz Kajaia, Keso Rusia, Gega Shonia, Guga Nadiradze, Datuna Luarsabishvili and Barbare Makhatadze.[17] Datuna Luarsabishvili and Barbare Makhatadze both took 5th place with the same score. This means that Ranina will have 6 semi-finalists for the first time.
Semi-final (6 November 2021)
The jurors for the Semi-final were Tika Rukhadze, Davit Evgenidze and Buka Kartozia.
After the solo performances, all three participants performed the song "Khelebi" (ხელები) together with the Gori Girls Choir.[20]
The day after the final was broadcast, the song "Let's Count The Smiles", with which Niko Kajaia would represent Georgia in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2021, was released along with a music video.[21] The song was written by Giga Kukhianidze, and contains lyrics in Georgian, English, and French.[22]
At Junior Eurovision
After the opening ceremony, which took place on 13 December 2021, it was announced that Georgia would perform second on 19 December 2021, following Germany and preceding Poland.[23]
At the end of the contest, Georgia received 163 points, placing 4th out of 19 participating countries.[24]
Performance
Niko Kajaia was accompanied on stage by two dances, Barbare Tvarava and Lizi Kvirkevlia.[25] The three are dressed in primary colours, with colourful shapes shown on the LED screens behind them.[26][27]
Voting
The same voting system that was introduced in the 2017 edition was used, where the results were determined by 50% online voting and 50% jury voting. Every participating broadcaster assembled a national jury that consisted of three music industry professionals and two children aged between 10 and 15 who were citizens of the country they represented. The rankings of those jurors were combined to make an overall top ten.[28]
The online voting consisted of two phases. The first phase of the online voting began on 17 December 2021 when a recap of all the rehearsal performances was shown on the contest's website Junioreurovision.tv before the viewers could vote. After this, voters also had the option to watch longer one-minute clips from each participant's rehearsal. This first round of voting ended on 17 December at 15:59 CET. The second phase of the online voting took place during the live show and began right after the last performance and was open for 15 minutes. International viewers were able vote for three songs.[29] They were also able to vote for their own country's song. These votes were then turned into points which were determined by the percentage of votes received. For example, if a song received 10% of the votes, it received 10% of the available points.
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