Miss World Contest Turns Ugly

‘It is kind of stupid to start thinking that if this or that had not occurred I would perhaps have been Miss World 2010. I do believe everything happens out of a reason.’

The contest was held in Sanya on China’s tropical Hainan Island for the fifth time in the last eight years. Britain’s Dorset-born Ann Sidney, who won Miss World in 1964, was on the judge’s panel along with six other former winners.

Founded by the late Eric Morley as part of the Festival of Britain celebrations in 1951, Miss World is the oldest international beauty pageant. It is still run by his widow, Julia, and has a long history of scandals and controversies.

This year was no exception. Even before the rumpus over Miss Norway’s early exit, the contest had to be moved from its original site in Vietnam because the location was an ecological heritage zone and local residents had allegedly been forcibly moved from their land. With China as the host, Taiwan was unable to compete because Beijing does not recognise it as an independent country.

And on Saturday night, the Chinese audience gave Miss Japan the silent treatment, apparently protesting Japan’s claim to the Diaoyu Islands, a group of uninhabited rocks coveted for fishing and mineral rights. The contest has had its fair share of controversies since its inception.

The UK’s 1974 winner, Helen Morgan, was forced to resign after four days when she was revealed to be an unmarried mother and the 1980 Miss World, Gabriella Brun, from Germany, had to quit after it was discovered she posed naked for a magazine.

In 2002, the beauty queens had to flee the host country, Nigeria, after 200 people died in riots which started after a newspaper suggested the Muslim prophet Mohammed would have chosen a wife from one of the contestants had he been alive.