Norwegians celebrate in Moscow

The smart money had long been on Norway to snatch victory in Eurovision 2009 - although many had assumed it would be a hard-fought contest with at least five other countries in the frame.

But in the end, 23-year-old violinist Alexander Rybak romped home with his simple, high-energy song Fairytale - taking a record 387 points, way ahead of nearest rival Iceland.

Rybak, with his troupe of acrobatic dancers and quintessentially blonde backing-singers, raced into the post-results press conference, jumped onto the podium and gave another breathless performance of the winning ditty - just in case anyone had missed it the first (or second) time round.

The assembled Eurovision press corps - more participants than critics - yelped with joy and congratulated him personally before lobbing him some exquisitely easy questions.

Rybak, bubbling with fresh-faced innocence, said he knew he'd been the favourite to win in Moscow but was modest about the scale of his victory.

"I still think I am far from being the best singer in the competition tonight," he said.

"But I had a story to tell and I guess people liked that story."

He wrote the song himself and, as he admitted, simplicity is the formula for Eurovision glory.

So now a record deal and a tour await the Norwegian fiddler who was born in Belarus and speaks fluent Russian.

His euphoria was matched by the European Broadcasting Union official hosting the press conference, who proclaimed Moscow 2009 as the best Eurovision Song contest there'd ever been, with the strongest line-up of finalists.