As the crown descended on that delicate head, she wept tears of joy, not able to believe that she had truly achieved it. That that weight upon her head wasn’t one of the pressures of her profession but the rewards of her toil. Presenting the Miss World of 2016 – Ms. Stephani del Valle from Puerto Rico.
Stephanie, a 19-year old brunette who speaks Spanish, English and French, was chosen out of a delegate of 117 contestants from all over the world. This 66th edition of the pageant was held in MGM National Harbor, Oxon Hill, Maryland, United States. The runner ups who narrowly missed the title were Yaritza Miguelina Reyes Ramirez of the Dominican Republic (First Runner Up), followed by Natasha Mannuela of Indonesia (Second Runner Up).
The crown was passed onto the current beauty queen by former Miss World Mireia Lalaguna of Spain who won the pageant in 2015. Stephanie called it “an honour and a great responsibility” to have brought home the crown. She edged out the other 4 contestants in the finale which had Miss Philippines, Catriona Elisa Gray, and Miss Kenya, Evelyn Njambi, apart from the Indonesian and Dominican Republic contenders.
Puerto Rico becomes the 17th country with multiple winners since Miss World started in 1951. The tradition has always been to find the best beauty out of the lot through a series of events, winning which the lady proceeds into the semi-finals. They are then generally taken through a round of questionnaire, the marks of which added with the rest of the scoreboard decide the top 5. The fast track events in question this year with their winners were:
Top Model: China PR
Sports: Cook Islands
Talent: Mongolia
Multimedia: Philippines
Beauty with a Purpose: Indonesia
Miss India, Priyadarshini Chatterjee, found a place for herself in the top 5 nominations for Beauty with a Purpose but lost out to Indonesia before losing out a place in the top 10 after advancing to top 20.
One another bit of debate that kept the pageant in news was Canada’s Miss World representative, Chinese-born Anastasia Lin, who was entangled in a controversy when pageant officials allegedly warned her against speaking to the press for three weeks about human rights abuses in China. She was later allowed to be a part of the pageant.
Apart from all the controversies though, we look forward to another year of the crowning beauty striving to make a difference in the world with her beauty and power.
