After a month long competition, Miss Earth finally almost reaches its climax, with the Final night in just two days. But before celebrating the coronation of the new Queen, let’s take a review on the competition so far!
The Ones to Beat
One of most exciting part of a competition is determining the frontrunners and pageant is no exception. After all, not all beauties are created equal. There will always be some girls that stand out. The clear frontrunners for Miss Earth 2010 are India and Vietnam. Both of them have won three special awards each, which reflects how well have they performed during the competition. Vietnam will also play her “host nation” card, so expect her to get high placement, one of the Element title at least. Ecuador, a former Miss International semifinalist, is also another contestant to beat, having won two special awards and included as finalists in three preliminary competitions. Venezuela and Czech Republic are both enlisted as finalists in the two most important preliminary competitions, evening gown and swimsuit. That should be a good omen for both them. And finally don’t count out South Africa, Italy, Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Guam, whom despite having not won any awards yet, should make a great impression to the judges with their superior beauty.
The Winning Costume …. Or Gown
Japan’s triumph for Best National Costume category was heavily criticized by pageant fans around the world as her Irezumi inspired costume was deemed too simple to be called a costume. In fact it resembles an evening gown more than a national costume. Some of her supporter tried to defend her by saying that it was her performance on the stage that impressed the judges. However her detractors were still not pleased with this explanation and argued that the costume design should be the major criteria in selecting a Best National Costume winner.
Miss Sponsor Award
In a rather suspicious trend, all winners of the major special awards (India, Japan, Ecuador, Serbia, and Vietnam) were also selected as the recipients of some minor awards from the sponsors. It provokes a speculation that their victory on each respective award competition is not purely due to their own merit but rather because they were favored by the sponsors of the pageant. Whether this speculation is true or false remains a subject to debate.
Unlucky Number 14
In a strange move, the organizer of the pageant decides to cut the number of semifinal spots from 16 to only 14. In our opinion, this decision is totally unnecessary as Top 16 format has suited Miss Earth perfectly. Reducing spots for semifinal, especially in such a competitive batch, would only increase the possibility of wasted beauties, which would be a big loss for Miss Earth itself.
Beauty for Mother Nature
Staying true to its platform as an environmental dedicated pageant, Miss Earth 2010 took the contestants in various “green” activities, including several tree planting activities, beach cleaning, and an open forum about the global water crisis. In addition, these beauties were also involved in some charity events which raised VND100 million, donated to the HCM City Red Cross, to support flood victims in the Central Region of Vietnam.
Officially Beautiful
Another step forward for Miss Earth this year is that they now have official profile photo for each contestant. Even better, the photo shoot was done in a very good quality. In the spirit of this year theme “The Goddesses of Water”, blue color seems to be the dominant aspect for the official photo, as the contestants were featured in blue swimsuits at various exotic locations around Vietnam. Hopefully the official photo would not only be done this year but continue on as a tradition for the following years.
So that is our review of Miss Earth 2010 competition so far. Stay tuned for our Leaderboard which will be posted soon ... and the current update of Miss Photogenic award which will be announced tonight!
