The 1986 ESC in Bergen could have had twenty-two participating countries, which would have been a record at the time, but both Italy and Greece pulled out.
Italy seems to have withdrawn relatively early, before the running order was established. Rumour has it that RAI had approached Ricchi e Poveri to do the job, and as they turned it down Italy stayed at home altogether.
Greece pulled out at a later stage after being drawn to sing as number 18 (some sources say 17 - does anyone know for sure?). Eurovision clashed with the orthodox Easter and ERT deemed it impossible to combine the two.
Many sources claim that Greece had already decided its representative before throwing in the towel.
Polina - Wagon-lit (Greece 1986)
Polina already had ESC experience as one of Elpida's backing singers in Jerusalem 1979 and would surely have made a good impression in Bergen.
But I'm not so sure I buy the story. ERT had organised public selections almost every year of participation and kept on doing so for a number of years to come. Why would they have decided to go for internal selection this year?
It is quite a good song, however, but possibly not the song to change Greek ESC history. I think it would have landed somewhere just below tenth place or so, what does everyone else think?
I believe that the ESC date was set so much in advance that it would be stupid for ERT to have the song chosen before they realized the problem with the date.
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