Miss World 2001: The well-Connected Pageant

With more than a billion viewers watching by satellite, Miss World 2001 Agbani Darego of Nigeria takes the traditional walk on-stage as the audience gives her a standing ovation.

World's oldest international competition puts itself
on the map with 21st-century Internet features.

The world's first and oldest continuing international beauty pageant, the Miss World competition has played a major role in defining the look and feel of pageants everywhere. For example, in 1951 in its very first year, Eric Morley, at the time the public relations director of a small British leisure company called Mecca Limited, held the first Miss World pageant in a dance hall. He decided that each contestant should wear a bikini to better attract media attention.

A half century has passed since that inaugural pageant took place and much has changed. Eric Morley passed away late in 2000, leaving the competition in the competent hands of his wife, Julia Morley. The prize money for the winner has grown from �1,000 to a $225,000 prize package. And unlike that first year, the contestants did not appear live in swimsuits. But one thing certainly hasn't changed. The Miss World pageant this year continued to attract media attention in some very creative ways.

Instead of women in bikinis or traditional network TV contracts, Miss World 2001 stepped beyond that oh-so-20th-century technology and established a foothold in the global digital world of tele-communications, touting many groundbreaking innovations that suggest how pageant presentions could be enhanced in the near future.

An estimated 1.2-billion-person satellite-TV viewing audience around the world watched preliminary events during the week prior to the Nov. 16 finals in a show called Miss World — You Decide, then telephoned in their votes by dialing special phone numbers that were flashed onto their TV screens. Viewers also were able to send in additional votes from cyber cafes during the pre-taped swimsuit competition, and a live on-stage Internet-driven Top-10 scoreboard was updated to reflect the voting. To add to the interactive flavor of the pageant, a live webcast was made accessible at www.missworld.org, Miss World's redesigned web site.

Miss World broke new ground in the contestant department too, attracting the largest number of international contestants ever assembled for a pageant — 93 women from around the world. Also new this year was a college scholarship award and a separate talent competition with a recording deal for the winner (see sidebar for the winner). Even the Miss World 2001 winner, Nigerian model Agbani Darego, became a first: the first black African winner in the international competition's 51-year history. As the new Miss World, Agbani walked away from the Nov. 16 finals, which was staged at the Superbowl in Sun City, South Africa, with the pageant's largest prize package ever and more than $100,000 of it in cash and earnings.

Miss World Organization (MWO), the pageant's parent company based in Great Britain, has a long history of donating to charity as well. Eric Morley, in 1961, turned the pageant into a charity fund-raiser, and in his role as chairman of Variety Club of Great Britain raised more than 7 million British pounds to aid handicapped and needy children. Eric's wife, Julia, the current MWO Chairman and Chief Executive and chair of Variety International Charities, coined the phrase "the pageant with a purpose" and encouraged all nations to raise money to help their own disadvantaged children. Adding it up, she says, Miss World has raised $150 million for worldwide charities throughout its history. Proceeds in South Africa were shared with Operation Hunger, a children's self-help feeding program, and the President Mandela Fund for Children.

As Great Britain's biggest beauty event, Miss World commanded huge television audiences for the 20 years the BBC televised the show. At its peak, 27.5 million British tuned in, an audience comparable to a royal wedding. From 1980 to 1988, the show was carried on the Thames Television network. In 1992, Sun City, the South African gambling and holiday resort, hosted the show for the first time and kept it through 1996. The pageant's return there in 2001, along with the return of TV talk-show star Jerry Springer for a second year, raised the anticipation for a highly successful show as the 93 delegates began arriving in South Africa in late October for what would be several weeks of promotional junkets and rehearsals for the final show.

Carrie Stroup, the U.S. delegate to Miss World, was thrilled to be chosen as one of a group of contestants who met with the internationally acclaimed South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela in early November. The lucky lovely ladies also made an excursion to Capetown, where they took part in videotaping for the pageant's beachwear category.

The Miss World 2001 contestants joined Mr. Mandela at a dinner party to celebrate the opening of the Centre for Reconciliation on a private game reserve in the Northern Province of South Africa. The Centre for Reconciliation, forming part of a private residence for Mr. Mandela, is located on a remote site in the Northern Province. It provides Mr. Mandela with peace, tranquility, and an ideal setting at which to hold high-level peace talks with senior members of foreign governments.

On Friday, Nov. 16, the 93 contestants in evening gowns were joined on the Superbowl stage by the entertainers "UMOJO," who put on a glittering, spectacular opening musical number with a celebration of African dance and song. Host Jerry Springer got the finals show off to a rousing start as he introduced groups of contestants as they appeared in evening gowns live on-stage. Meanwhile, the swimwear portion of the show, for the first time in the pageant's history, was pre-taped (rather than live) and screened for the judges and the Superbowl audience of approximately 5,000 appreciative pageant enthusiasts. After each group came on-stage, the scoreboard was updated to reflect the real-time scoring process.

This year, for the first time, telephone votes generated by the Miss World — You Decide preview program were added to the judges' scoring, creating a real sense of anticipation as the leader board constantly changed throughout the evening. The Miss World voting system consists of 50 percent Interview, with judges only making the decision as contestants appear for questioning in their evening gowns, and 50 percent Swimsuit, which combines the vote of the judges and telephone callers, split 50-50. Miss World built another twist into public voting which keeps everything fair: it weighs the phone-in votes based on the country of origin's population; that way, even the contenders from countries with small populations would have the same chance as the women from the more populous countries.

Once all 93 delegates were introduced, the scoreboard showed the Top 10. After Mr. Springer announced special awards (see sidebar) and joked with the audience, he announced the Top 10: Nigeria, Agbani Darego; Ukraine, Oleksandra Nikolayenko; China, Bing Li; Nicaragua, Ligia Arguello Roa; Spain, Macarena Garcia Naranjo; Yugoslavia, Tijana Stajsic; Scotland, Juliet-Jane Horne; Aruba, Zerelda Lee; Russia, Irina Kovalenko; and South Africa, Jo-Ann Strauss.

Judging continued with the Top 10 semifinalists participating within an informal interview chat session, and here, again, the pageant introduced another new twist. Until this year, contestants who could not speak English were provided professional interpreters by the pageant. This year, those women had their chaperones with them on-stage to translate.

Scoring of the judges based on these interviews winnowed the finalists to the Top 5: Nicaragua's Ligia Arguello Roa, China's Bing Li, Scotland's Juliet-Jane Horne, Aruba's Zerelda Lee, and Nigeria's Agbani Darego. As the excitement was building, the newly-constructed interactive web site once again came into play; each of the final five fielded questions submitted to www.missworld.org by pageant followers from around the world.

While the judges pondered those Interview responses, recorded their final marks, and turned them in to the accountant for tabulation, the audience enjoyed live on-stage entertainment and a tearful farewell visit from Miss World 2000 Priyanka Chopra. Then, with all the scores counted, Julia Morley announced the Top 3 winners, as was Eric Morley's custom, in reverse order: 2nd Runner-up Juliet-Jane Horne of Scotland, 1st Runner-Up Zerelda Lee of Aruba, and Miss World 2001 winner Agbani Darego of Nigeria. Third runner-up was Ligia Arguello Roa of Nicaragua and 4th runner-up was Bing Li of China. Miss Nigeria Agbani Darego, wearing her hair in a spiral surrounded by the Miss World titleholder's crown and a pair of long, spangly earrings, took the traditional ceremonial walk around the stage as the audience stood and cheered.

At that moment, Miss World 2001 and its worldwide audience were witness to the dawning of a new digital universe with a young model from Nigeria as its queen. Is the interactive, Internet-connected pageant the wave the of future? We'll just have to stay connected and watch how the bold new world of pageantry develops.

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Nigerian model Agbani Darego, became a first: the first black African winner in the international competition's 51-year history.

Miss World weighs the phone-in votes based on the country of origin's population; that way, even the contenders from countries with small populations would have the same chance as the women from the more populous countries.