Miss Grand Slam 2017: How Round 1 Will Work
We have started our search for Global Beauties 20th Miss Grand Slam and we can now reveal how this year's contest will work. A total of 116 young women who placed at Miss Grand International (20), Miss International (15), Miss World (40), Miss Universe (16) and Miss Supranational (25) qualified for the first round. We added 12 more contestants as Wild Cards. Three were voted in by our followers on Instagram (2 from Miss Universe, 1 from Miss International) and three more were voted in by our fans on facebook (1 from Miss Supranational, 1 from Miss Grand International and 1 from Miss International). Our judges have selected 6 other Wild Cards (4 from Miss Universe, 1 from Miss World and 1 from Miss International). That brings us to a total of 128 contestants who have qualified for the first round. You can view all of them by clicking here.
ROUND 1
All 128 contestants have been entered into a database and a draw generator was used to determine 16 groups. Each group is made up of 8 contestants. See the groups here:
ONLY 64 WILL SURVIVE THE FIRST ROUND
The first round will be survived by only half of the women in the running for the 2017 Miss Grand Slam title, 4 from each group. This year, we want our fans to be more involved than ever before. The fan vote will secure a spot in the second round for one of the 8 women in each group. The other 3 spots will be determined by our judging panel, which means that 64 women will move on to the second round.
JUDGES
We have selected 10 judges from around the world to help us judge this year's Miss Grand Slam contest. Our fan judge competition saw 5 fans from around the world being selected to assist the judges for different rounds of the competition. Global Beauties co-owners Henrique Fontes and Andre Sleigh will also join the judging panel for this round.
Let's meet our 10 expert judges:
The Times of Beauty founder, director and editor Edwin Toledo from Puerto Rico has been a pageant fan and blogger for more almost 15 years.
From India we have Dipak Shahi, the co-owner of The Great Pageant Community.
Former pageant co-ordinator, trainer and stylist who worked with beauties in Tahiti and New Caledonia for Miss World and Miss France, Heiarii Robson.
Buhle Mbonambi is the Lifestyle Editor for the Sunday Tribune (IOL Group) in South Africa.
Stavros Nikolaou was born in Cyprus but he is currently a journalist, television presenter and model in Greece.
Global Beauties' former co-owner, co-founder and honorary member, Ed Dominguez from Panama.
Author of Misdemeanours - Beauty Queen Scandals Sally-Ann Fawcett from the United Kingdom is also joining our panel.
She was Miss World South Sudan in 2012, won the Miss World Top Model competition, placed in the top 7 of Miss World 2012 and was named Miss World Africa. We also crowned her our very own Miss Grand Slam 2012 - Atong Demach from South Sudan.
Stephania Stegman was the first woman from Paraguay to win Miss Supranational in 2015 and she was also the first (and so far only) woman from this contest to take home our Miss Grand Slam title in 2015.
We are also greatly honored and absolutely delighted to have Ann Sidney, Miss World 1964 from the United Kingdom on the panel for our 20th Miss Grand Slam selection.
THE JUDGING
To ensure as much fairness as possible, the panel for each round will consist of 7 members - 5 from the expert panel, 1 of Global Beauties' co-owners and a fan judge. They will be asked to choose their top 5 of each group and rank them from 1st to 5th place. Their top choice will be awarded 10 points, the 2nd place 8 points, third 6 points, fourth 4 points and 5th 2 points. The three ladies in each group with the highest number of points will join the winner of the fan vote in the second round of Miss Grand Slam 2017. (Should there be a tie, the co-owner of Global Beauties who is not judging that round will break the tie.)
Round 1 will officially kick off on Wednesday, April 18. Good luck to all the ladies!