Odds Review #7: Week Ending 16/02

It’s been a busy week dominated by Sanremo, an often important event in the Eurovision season with Italy more often than not regarded as a contender at this stage. That’s currently not the case with winner Olly expected to confirm his participation in the coming days- so not the immediate confirmation we've been used to recently. In the unlikely event he turns it down, Lucio Corsi and then Brunori Sas are next in line who wouldn’t improve the current 50s. Consensus is Italy will do fine, but no one seems to be backing them to go all the way.

Elsewhere things were far more straightforward with the favourites running away with it in Poland, Norway, Lithuania and Estonia. Justyna is back for Poland after 30 years and Kyle Alessandro put in a solid performance live and has raised qualification hopes from the dead. Lithuania's katarsis make an early run as the Eurovision hipsters entry of the year and sit in the 40s currently. Estonia is one proving divisive in both taste and prediction with Tommy Cash around 30.

Finally, today saw Parg win Depi Evratesil in Armenia with qualification looking the extent of their ambitions this time. Already on the way to triple figures, they have stormed past that today.

Next week is quieter overall with only Iceland set to give us a new entry. Germany's selection takes a more substantial turn and Portugal's FdC starts, both of which will have some eyes on them. The main focus of the week is however on Sweden where Måns Zelmerlow joins the party, which could prove to be the pivotal moment of the season. With the ongoing uncertainty elsewhere, odds here have shortened considerably in the last days.