Sunday, December 14, 2008

Ksenia Sukhinova of Russia, won the Miss World 2008 crown on Saturday, outshining 108 other international competitors. She was crowned by her predecessor Miss World 2007, Zhang Zilin of the People’s Republic of China. She pledged to “help people” and said, “I think I can help people and I want to help people and today if I walk away with this crown I will do that.”

Sukhinova, 5′ 10″, said that her immediate ambitions included meeting Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev. She is a student of Tyumen State Oil and Gas University, she is enrolled in the Bachelor of Science program, majoring in Engineering.

Sukhinova was born in 1987 in Nizhnevartovsk, in the north west of Siberia. Sukhinova won the 2007 Miss Russia beauty contest on December 14, in Moscow, where she represented Tyumen. Ksenia surpassed 50 other contestants from all over Russia. She was unable to represent Russia at Miss Universe 2008 due to her college work, so her 2nd runner-up, Vera Krasova, replaced her in the contest. Vera placed as the 3rd runner-up to Venezuela’s Dayana Mendoza.

Miss World 2008, the 58th Miss World was held at Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa on December 13, 2008. Originally, the pageant was going to take place in Kiev, Ukraine, but because of the ongoing crisis between Georgia and Russia in neighboring South Ossetia, the Miss World Organization decided to move the pageant away from Eastern Europe. 109 contestants from all over the world competed for the crown, marking the biggest turnout in the 58 years of the pageant, surpassing the previous record of 107 during Miss World 2004.

She is the second Russian contestant to win Miss World, the first was Julia Kourotchkina in 1992.

The first runner-up was India’s Parvathy Omanakuttan, while the second runner-up was Trinidad and Tobago’s Gabrielle Walcott. The other finalists were Angola’s Brigith dos Santos and South Africa’s Tansey Coetzee. There were 15 semi-finalists.

Julia Morley, Miss World committee head, and wife of Miss World creator Eric Morley said that the winner has to espouse “beauty with a purpose” with charity via fund raising, being one of the main focuses of the contest. “Over the years the crown that is worn by the winner is a symbol for fundraising. Miss World herself, this year, the winner from China, she’s raised over 30 million dollars in her year in office. So perhaps from anything else it does a lot of good things for needy children and old people, which I think is important too.” she said.

It was the sixth time that South Africa hosted the pageant, more than any other country except England. The event was aired live to millions of viewers in 187 countries, who, for the first time in the pageant’s history, were allowed to vote for one of the semi-finalists through the Internet. An international jury elected the winner.