Image: Instagram/@karolinabielawska
[Updated: March 17, 2022, 11:14 a.m.]
Miss Poland Karolina Bielawska was crowned as Miss World 2021 in the pageant held at Puerto Rico today, March 17.
The crown was passed on to Miss Poland Karolina Bielawska by Miss World 2019 Toni-Ann Singh. Miss U.S.A. Shree Saini was named first runner-up and Miss Cote d’Ivoire Olivia Yace as second runner-up.
Bielawska bested 96 other aspirants to inherit the crown from Tori-Ann Singh of Jamaica, who won in the pageant’s 69th edition held in 2019.
The most recent staging of the global tilt is the pageant’s edition for 2021. It was previously scheduled on Dec. 16 last year, but was postponed when a number of delegates and staff members tested positive for COVID-19 in the course of the competition in Puerto Rico. No contest was organized in 2020 because of the pandemic.
The new Miss World will have a relatively shorter reign, because the pageant is reportedly planning to hold another competition later this year, which will be the contest’s edition for 2022.
Only 40 delegates were asked to return to Puerto Rico for the pageant’s resumption — the 15 winners of the six “fast-track” events, and 25 other representatives chosen by the judges — but all the 97 delegates still had their moment in the coronation show.
The Philippines’ representative Tracy Maureen Perez bowed out of the competition after advancing to the top 13 finalists but failing to enter the competition’s top 6. Perez was also one of the winners of the Beauty With a Purpose and Head-to-Head Challenge.
The first, and so far only, Filipino woman to bring home the Miss World crown is Megan Young, who won in 2013. JB
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