Switzerland is emerging as a firm favourite to win the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, leaving fans wanting to know about this year’s entry, Nemo.
This year the contest will be taking place in Sweden, after singer Loreen won in Liverpool in 2023 – earning the Scandinavian nation their seventh go at hosting the iconic competition.
But this year, all eyes are on Switzerland’s entry, Nemo, who is the bookmaker’s favourite. As the contest creeps closer, we’ve taken a look at their career to date and odds of winning Eurovision 2024.
Who is Switzerland’s 2024 Eurovision act?
Nemo will represent Switzerland in Eurovision 2024. They are a 24-year-old singer and rapper born in Biel, a small bilingual town in Switzerland.
Though Nemo has been playing the violin, piano and drums since they were a small child, they became famous overnight in 2016 when one of their performances went viral.
Nemo went on to release two EPs and landed seven songs in the official Swiss Singles Chart.
And they’re no stranger to a TV competition, finishing fifth in the second season of The Masked Singer Switzerland.
In their music, Nemo deals with personal themes such as gender identity, mental health and finding one’s place in this world.
Nemo is non-binary, and if they do indeed go on to win the contest they will be the first non-binary performer to do so in Eurovision history. In fact, 2024 is the first year Eurovision has seen openly non-binary performers compete, as Ireland’s entry, Bambie Thug, is also non-binary.
In an interview with Eurovoix, Nemo explained what it means to them to be taking part as a non-binary artist. They said, ‘What I would want to do is let people that are non-binary, trans, whatever, know that they are perfect the way they are. And I feel like [performing in Eurovision] really sends that as a sign.
‘For me, just showing up as myself and performing my song, talking about being non-binary, talking about the experience of finding my true self and coming out…that’s just a big privilege that I have and I want to use.’
What is Switzerland’s Eurovision song for 2024?
Nemo will be singing The Code for Switzerland at Eurovision 2024. It’s a personal song that reflects on their journey in realising their non-binary identity.
Lyrics from the song include ‘I’m done playing the game, I’ll break out of the chains’ and ‘I went to hell and back, To find myself on track, I broke the code’.
Nemo’s song was selected to represent Switzerland at Eurovision 2024 by panels made up of members of the public as well as a jury of experts.
The tough selection process saw The Code beat 471 other entries, granting Nemo his ticket to Sweden.
Nemo’s odds of winning Eurovision
Most bookmakers have Switzerland as the favourite to win Eurovision 2024.
Eurovision World gives Nemo’s song a 24% chance of winning – followed by Croatia with a 17% chance – while Odds Checker and Paddy Power both give Switzerland odds of 15/8 to win (roughly 35%).
Along with Croatia, other favourites to win the competition include Italy, Netherlands and Ukraine.
Has Switzerland ever won Eurovision?
Switzerland won Eurovision in 1965 and 1988.
1956 was the very first edition of what has gone on to become an iconic song contest and was hosted in Lugano, Switzerland. Swiss singer Lys Assia won the competition with the song Refrain.
However Switzerland declined hosting the contest for the second year in a row and Eurovision didn’t return to Switzerland until 1989, after the country won for the second time the year before.
World-renowned singer Céline Dion won the contest for the country in 1988 with the song Ne partez pas sans moi (‘Don’t Leave Without Me’).
At the time, participants didn’t have to be nationals of the country they were representing and this was the case for Celine, who was born in Canada.
It’s now been 36 years since Switzerland last won Eurovision, and all hopes are on Nemo to seal the deal for the country and see it host the Eurovision Song Contest in 2025.
The Eurovision Grand Final takes place on Saturday 11 May.