The 74th edition of the Miss Universe beauty pageant awaits its final gala, to be held Friday in Thailand to choose a new queen from among delegates from 120 countries and territories, including nine mothers, a transgender woman, a genocide survivor and the first representative from Palestine in the pageant’s history.
After 20 days of activities in the Asian country, the candidates will parade in the final gala, which will begin at 8.00 local time (1.00 GMT) hosted by American comedian Steve Byrne and with a renewed panel of judges, after the resignation this week of two members of the jury.
Although the delegates participated in numerous fashion shows in Thailand, they were only evaluated in four activities that determined the list of the 30 women who will be announced as qualifiers at the beginning of the show and who will continue the race to become the successor of Denmark’s Victoria Kjaer.
According to beauty pageant website Sash Factor, Ivory Coast’s Olivia Yace is the favorite to win the crown based on her performance in the preliminary competitions, followed by Thailand’s Veena Praveenar, Philippines’ Ahtisa Manalo, Venezuela’s Stephany Abasaly and Puerto Rico’s Zashley Alicea.
Other specialized portals highlight the favoritism of the representatives of Mexico, Fátima Bosch; Turks and Caicos, Bereniece Dickenson; Colombia, Vanessa Pulgarín, and China, Zhaona Zena.
Following the path of inclusion that the contest has taken in the last decade, in this edition the representatives of Bonaire, Cambodia, Czech Republic, Mauritius, Portugal, Rwanda, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago and the U.S. Virgin Islands have children, something that prevented them from participating until 2023, when the restriction was lifted.
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In addition, the delegates from Bonaire, Nicole Peiliker, and Rwanda, Solange Tuyishime, are both 42 years old, and can participate thanks to the fact that, in the last five years, the age limit was also eliminated from the competition, which has crowned only women under 30 for the past seven decades.
The Rwandan is a survivor of the genocide her country experienced in 1994 and Vietnamese Nguyen Huong Giang is the only transgender participant in the edition, which is once again being held in Thailand, where Spain’s Angela Ponce became the first trans woman to compete in 2018.
The edition will also mark a milestone with the first participation of a representative from Palestine, Nadeen Ayoub, who has excelled in the activities leading up to the final gala, including the swimsuit parades, which she completed wearing a burkini, just like the candidates from Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.
The preliminary competition was held on Wednesday in Bangkok, where the delegates wore traditional costumes inspired by their places of origin, colorful evening gowns and swimsuits, while the private interview with the jury was held last Saturday.
Jamaican delegate Gabrielle Henry suffered a fall from the stage on Wednesday as she was finishing her pageant in a ball gown and was taken off the stage on a stretcher and is receiving medical attention at a health center.
The president of Miss Universe, Raul Rocha, informed through Instagram that the candidate has no broken bones and that she would remain under medical observation, without it being clear at the moment whether or not she will compete in the final.
The number of participants was reduced by the absences of Persia, Germany and Niger, which notified their departure from the competition before November for reasons unrelated to the event, and the withdrawal of Iceland, which left the training camp in Thailand citing health problems, reported Agencia EFE.
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