The biggest annual beauty festival in this planet, Miss World 2009, has kicked off last week with a record breaking 112 contestants. Out of these 112 beauties, we will try to find which ones are the real contenders to become 59th Miss World. Following the concept of Miss World 2005 and 2006, we divide the girls into 6 continental groups before conducting a beauty observation on them. Now that the long and exhausting (but fun) observation's done, here is our full report on who's our top bet for each region!
Asia Pacific
• First Place : Philippines (Marie Ann Umali)
• Second Place : New Zealand (Magdalena Schoeman)
• Third Place : India (Pooja Chopra)
During the early 2000’s decade, Philippines emerged as a power house Asian nation in Miss World (along with China). They made four consecutive placement in Miss World semifinal from 2002 to 2005. But their strike of luck in this pageant seems to abruptedly ended after heavy favorite Carlene Aguilar was shockingly excluded from the Top 6 in 2005. Since then Philippines has never made any semifinal placement yet. But this year they are ready to make a big comeback. Lebanese Filipino beauty Marie Ann Umali is probably the best Filipino’s delegate after Carlene, and she’s more than ready to avenge Carlene’s undeserving defeat. With such a celestial and stunning face, she is unanimously voted as our choice for best contestant in Asia Pacific region. And we are confident enough to say Umali will bring back Philippines’ luck in Miss World 2009.
Northern Europe
• First Place : Belarus (Yulia Sindzeyeva)
• Second Place : Austria (Anna Hammel)
• Third Place : Ukraine (Evgeniya Tulchevska)
With such a group competitive contestants from Northern Europan region, it’s almost an impossible job to pick a contestant and crown her the best in this region. In the end, Belarus becomes our ultimate choice due to this unique gift she has. From our beauty obvervation, Yulia Sindzeyeva is the “chameleon” beauty of the year. She can project two different personas at once with style and sophistication. Depending on your perspective of view, Yulia is a classic pageant queen beauty at one side and a modern top model at the other side. Regardless which side your point of view is, you have to agree that this girl is a front runner in this contest. Aside from the fact that she already has an edgy look, Yulia also has a great stage presence, as she showed during her time in Miss International 2007, where she placed as 2nd Runner Up. No wonder if she is currently our top bet for Top Model fast track.
Southern Europe
• First Place : Slovak Republic (Barbora Franekova)
• Second Place : France (Chloe Mortaud)
• Third Place : Spain (Carmen Fernandez)
This year is probably a golden year for Slovak Republic as they send a lot of top notch girls into the Grand Slam pageants. After Denisa Mendrejova in Miss Universe and Lea Sindlerova in Miss Earth, it’s time for Barbora Franekova to rock Miss World stage. Out of these three Slovakian beauties, we have to say that Barbora clearly has the best face. If you look carefully at her profile photo above, you can get almost a Monalisa vibe from this girl, an otherworldly mysterious yet mesmerizing aura. Her strongest feature, in our opinion, is her pair of piercing black eyes. Just look at her perfect gaze and you will understand why we rank her first for this region.
Caribbean
• First Place : Puerto Rico (Jennifer Colon)
• Second Place : Barbados (Leah Marville)
• Third Place : Dominican Republic (Ana Contreras)
Since her crowning moment, Jennifer Colon has been a front runner in this pageant. But since arrival, this girl suddenly skyrocketed herself to become a great competitor for the once unrivaled Perla Beltran of Mexico. Jennifer is, of course, already a stunning girl in the first place. But the key factor that helps her to rise into her position now, we believe, is consistency. Ever since her arrival, she has never done a single mistake and appears totally perfect in all her appearances. If she can keep this up unti the final night, don’t be surprised if she eventually overtake Perla and crowned as Miss World 2009. Another strong point for Jennifer is her great body and this one secures her spot as our top bet for Beach Beauty fast track.
Americas
• First Place : Mexico (Perla Beltran)
• Second Place : Venezuela (Maria Veliz)
• Third Place : Brazil (Luciana Reis)
Even in a such competitive year, Perla Beltran still manages to outshine almost all other contestants. Her face alone is one of the most beautiful face ever seen in pageant history. It’s only natural that pageant fans all around the world become “gaga” over her and worship her as Goddess of the year. However, even this Goddess is not undefeatable and still needs to watch out for her competitors as they slowly catch up to her beauty altitude. Her closest rival so far is Jennifer Colon of Puerto Rico and it’s kinda ironic that they share a lot of similar history and trivia togeher. They both had experienced the taste of being 1st Runne Up (Perla in Miss Mexico Earth 2007 and Jennifer in Miss Puerto Rico Universe 2009) before eventually winning a national title, they both have been favored by fans for Beach Beauty title this year, and now they are both the bookmarkers’ top bet for to win. Between these two girls, we say Perla still has the edge but she can’t be as relax as she previously was, since the gap between her and Jennifer is getting closer from day to day.
Africa
• First Place : South Africa (Tatum Keshwar)
• Second Place : Nigeria (Glory Chuku)
• Third Place : Namibia (Happie Ntelamo)
Africa is probaby the east competitive region this year. Therefore, it’s not a surprise that Tatum Keshwar owns this region. This statuesque and exotic black beauty has wowed us in Miss Universe 2009, where she placed as Top 10 semifinalist, and now we predict even a better placement for her. There are a couple of reasons on why we secretly believe Tatum’s gonna win this year. First, it’s been a long time since Miss World crown a black African girl, and Tatum would be a perfect choice tobecome Agbani Darego’s successor. Second, Tatum’s nation, South Africa, is the not only the host nation for Miss World 2009 but also for World Cup 2010, and having a Miss World from South Africa attending a World Cup event also held in South Africa is certainly a good publicity for Miss World Organization. Despite these external factors, we can’t deny that Tatum herself is a gorgeous girl. She is undeniably the best black contestant this year and we would still be happy to see her as Miss World 2009.
Now it's our Leaderboard jury's turn to decide which ones will make our Miss World hot list! Stay tune for it!
Miss World 2009 Part 2 : Our Continental Faves
