The Moldovan band SunStroke Project ranked third at the Eurovision Song Contest 2017, which is the best result ever achieved by Moldova in this competition, IPN reports.

Salvador Sobral of Portugal won the Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv with a score of 758 points. Bulgaria finished second with 658 points, while Moldova ranked third with 374 points with the song “Hey Mamma!”. This is the best result witnessed by Moldova during 12 years of participation in Eurovision. In 2005, the band Zdob si Zdub finished sixth.

The winner was half elected by the public and half by expert juries of the 42 participating countries. Both the juries and the public gave most of the voters to Portugal’s representative.

When the points of juries were announced, Moldova ranked eight, but it then climbed to the third spot following the adding of the public’s votes. Romania’s Ilinca and Alex Florea finished seventh with 282 points. The host country Ukraine ranked 24th.