December 4, 2011 - 18:01 AMT
Ana Khanchalyan: I’m happy to have won Junior Eurovision in Armenia

Junior Eurovision 2011 winners, the Candy band confessed to having seen their dream come true.

“I’m happy to have won, and twice as happy that our band came victorious in my motherland, Armenia,” one of the band members, Armenian-born Ana Khanchalyan said.

At news conference in Yerevan, the girls wished all the contestants success and belief in themselves. “From the very onset, we hoped to win, and our dreams came true,” the Candy band said, showing talisman bracelets the Patriarch of All Georgia gave them for luck.

The Junior Eurovision Song Contest was established in 2003. In 2010, the contest was broadcast live from Minsk, Belarus, where young talents between 10 and 15 from 14 countries performed.

Armenia has participated in the contest since 2007, when it was represented by Arevik (Sun), winning the 2nd place. In 2008, Monika Manucharyan with her song finished 8th. Luara Hayrapetyan representing Armenia in Eurovision 2009 again won the second place sharing it with a singer from Belarus, Roman Voloznev. In 2010, Vladimir Arzumanyan with his song Mama brought Armenia a smashing victory.

This year’s representative, Dalita, took the 5th place with her song “Welcome to Armenia.”