ESC Covers want to share the following story with our readers and after the story we will tell you the connection with the 2019 Eurovision song contest.

After a month of exploring the countryside, stopping for ‘padkos’ along the way and generally keeping authorities on their feet, the lion missing from the Karoo National Park has been captured. And like any naughty outlaw, he was sleeping it all off in a police cell, sure to be affronted upon waking that his freedom had suddenly been curtailed.

“He has been captured… and is safe and sound,” a relieved-sounding Reynold, SANParks general manager for media, PR and stakeholder relations, told News24 on Wednesday night. He said the lion was found on a farm outside Sutherland in the Northern Cape, about 300km from the Karoo National Park.

“He was darted from a helicopter and is in a police holding cell in Sutherland. We are just waiting for a crate to come and transport him back to the park. “He’s certainly not a criminal,” he joked, when asked what charges the lion faced.

This story has captured many in South Africa for weeks now and ESC Covers, a Eurovision website based in South Africa, has decided to award in Tel Aviv the singer from Lithuania, Jurij Veklenko with the RUN WITH THE LION AWARD, from ESC Covers. The award will be presented in Tel Aviv at one of the two press conferences. The look of the award is a surprise and people will see it in Tel Aviv for the first time.