Miss World 2018: Week 1 Recap (Part 1)
By GB’s Special Correspondent: Albin B
ARRIVALS: Mauritius, Scotland, India, Myanmar, Thailand, Guam, Latvia
Well, nearly an entire week has passed since Miss South Africa Thulisa Keyi "inaugurated" Miss World 2018 by becoming the first contestant to set foot in Sanya. She was soon followed by the gorgeous Miss Belarus Maria Vasilevich who immediately lit up the island paradise with her megawatt smile. Then Victoria Soto from Argentina landed, looking daisy fresh in spite of having traveled for nearly two days. And before you know it, a flood of girls started to appear - from Spain, Lebanon, Russia, Egypt, Tanzania, Philippines and Canada. Miss World 2018 had officially begun!
TEAM UK: Scotland, Northern Ireland, England, Wales
PRIDE OF CHINA: The host contestant is in the house!
Miss Austria
Russia and Kazakhstan
CARIBBEAN QUEENS: Bahamas and Puerto Rico
FINAL ARRIVALS: Miss Poland crowned her successor before she joined the group in China.
These first few days have been hectic, giving the normally languid Miss World almost a Miss Universe-esque dynamism (dare we hope that this spills over to the finale???). No time or room for sleeping off the jet lag! In quick succession over the course of two days as contestants straggled in, the girls each registered, found their roommates, filmed an introduction video and auditioned for Dances of the World, and the Talent round.
Then it was off to the kick off ceremony with the Miss World sponsor, New Silk Road's CEO David Lee and Beauty With a Purpose Ambassador Stephanie Del Valle in attendance, followed by a short parade in national costume through the streets of Sanya.
The next day, things got serious with the draw for the Head to Head Challenge contest. Miss World has always looked for women of substance and indeed, being able to speak eloquently and with sincerity to the media and dignitaries is a critical aspect of any Miss World's job. In 2014, when the contest was held in London, a brief debate at the famous Oxford Debating Society proved to be a great success and it is no secret that Miss World has searched for a way to incorporate public speaking into the contest without creating too much of a disadvantage to non-English speakers. The elimination of the Beach Beauty Fast Track also added urgency to the need to find an alternative contest that would successfully capture the imagination of fans. In 2016, in an attempt to keep fans engaged, Miss World conducted a series of informal chats with groups of contestants as they finished their preliminary interviews with the jury. These were live streamed on Facebook and proved to be a massive hit with fans. So last year, the organization built on this and developed it into a fast track event called the Head to Head challenge. In 2018, the sub contest returns in an even more exciting avatar, with each group winner facing off against another winner in a second round focused on their Beauty With a Purpose project! With so much at stake (the Head to Head is perhaps the easiest and most straightforward way to get a placement at Miss World), excitement was high for the random draw, which would determine the contestant groupings for the challenge. Of course, our interest was also in being able to see most of the girls live for the first time to see who stood out on first pass! More of that to come...
CARIBBEAN
AFRICA