Miss Universe Sheynnis Palacios will have 130 aspirants for her crown./ARMIN P. ADINA
Two months before the new Miss Universe gets crowned, the organizers released how she will be chosen, as well as other developments related to the competition, in a press conference called in Mexico City on Sept. 4 (Sept. 5 in Manila).
The Miss Universe Organization (MUO) has confirmed that, indeed, 130 countries and territories will send delegates to the 73rd edition of the international competition. The pageant will take place in Mexico, and the delegates will visit different Mexican destinations.
To accommodate the pageant’s largest haul of delegates this year, the competition will have the biggest stage ever to be used in the global tilt’s history. A new Miss Universe song will also be released in the 2024 contest. It may be recalled that a Miss Universe theme was used during the earlier years of the pageant.
From 130 delegates, the first cut will see 30 ladies advancing to the next round of competition, which is the swimsuit segment. From them, only 12 candidates will move to the evening gown parade. The final round will see the Top 5 contestants in the question round.
The new Miss Universe titleholder will receive a new crown, whose designer and provider has not been disclosed yet. Aside from the top winner, four runners-up will also be proclaimed. In addition, four “continental queens” will also be crowned.
Nicaraguan queen Sheynnis Palacios will crown her successor at the culmination of the 2024 Miss Universe coronation night at the Arena CDMX in Mexico City on Nov. 16 (Nov. 17 in Manila).
The Philippines will be represented by model and tourism management graduate Chelsea Manalo, who will try to write a new and better story for Filipino contenders in the Mexican staging of the Miss Universe pageant. In Mexico’s four previous hosting of the contest in 1978, 1989, 1993, and 2007, the Philippines’ delegates did not survive the first cut.
Manalo is aiming to become the fifth Miss Universe winner from the Philippines, following Gloria Diaz (1969), Margie Moran (1973), Pia Wurtzbach (2015), and Catriona Gray (2018). Last year’s representative Michelle Marquez Dee advanced to the Top 10, received the “Spirit of Carnival” award, was one of the three “gold finalists” in the “Voice for Change” initiative, and even topped the online popularity poll and the voting for national costume.