There has been a lot of speculation concerning the health condition of Portuguese hopeful Salvador Sobral who has won Festival da Canção 2017 with his song ‘Amar pelos dois’.
During Festival da Canção itself he has undergone an operation to repair two hernias and later rumours about a heart condition arose, something that was mentioned in a Portuguese news report on RTP, the public service broadcaster of Portugal, the same channel that handled Festival da Canção.

In that same news report it became known that Salvador would be missing the first two Portuguese rehearsals and that his sister and composer of the song, Luísa Sobral, would be travelling to Kyiv instead to both do the rehearsals and the press conferences. Salvador himself will be arriving on the 7th of May, taking care of the dress rehearsals and the live shows himself.
Things have been spoken through with the EBU and they agree on this solution.

In an interview with fellow Eurovision site Wiwibloggs at an official CD launch event by RTP, Luísa said the following things, amongst other things:

He has his health team that is here in Portugal, so he cannot leave for that long. We talked to the Eurovision committee and they said that it was okay if I would do the first two rehearsals — they are more lighting and sound — and it’s OK if I’m there and sing for him and they can see if everything is right with the visuals.

I am the one that usually decides on the visuals. I really like that stuff too.

He’s going to come to do the really important rehearsals. The ones that people already vote. We just figure that two weeks were too much for him to be away without his medical team.

The song Salvador Sobral will be representing Portugal with on the 9th of May in Kyiv is ‘Amar pelos dois’:

ESCBubble wishes Salvador good health!