NCS
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Victoria Kjær Theilvig of Denmark has been topped Miss Universe 2024, changing into the primary Dane to ever win the competitors.
The 21-year-old, a aggressive dancer, entrepreneur, and aspiring lawyer, beat greater than 120 different contestants to win the annual magnificence pageant in Mexico City on Saturday night time.
She was applauded by different contestants on stage as she accepted the tiara from reigning titleholder Sheynnis Palacios of Nicaragua.
This 12 months’s finale featured a efficiency by singer Robin Thicke and was hosted by “Saved by the Bell” star Mario Lopez and former Miss Universe Olivia Culpo.
The glitzy pageant started with contestants being narrowed all the way down to a shortlist of 30, based mostly on the outcomes of Thursday’s preliminary occasion, which included a flamboyant national costume contest. The semi-finalists then paraded in swimwear, earlier than 12 of them superior to a night robe contest.
The ultimate 5 contestants later confronted questions on a spread of subjects, together with management and resilience. When requested how she would reside in another way if no person would decide her, Theilvig advised the judges she wouldn’t change something, saying, “I live by each day.”
When later requested what she would say to these watching, Theilvig urged viewers to “keep fighting … no matter where you come from.”
“I stand here today because I want a change, I want to make history, and that’s what I’m doing tonight,” she mentioned.
Chidimma Adetshina of Nigeria completed as first runner-up and Maria Fernanda Beltran of Mexico was named second runner-up. Suchata Chuangsri of Thailand and Ileana Marquez Pedroza of Venezuela adopted – with Pedroza, a 28-year-old mom, making historical past within the high 5 after the competitors eliminated a number of restrictions in recent times.
This 12 months marked the primary time in Miss Universe’s 72-year historical past that ladies aged over 28 had been permitted to enter. More than two dozen of the finalists had been older than would have been allowed in earlier years, with Malta’s Beatrice Njoya changing into the primary and solely girl in her 40s to succeed in the grand finale.
The age restrict’s elimination got here amid rising requires the pageant to modernize. Ahead of 2023’s contest, the Miss Universe Organization additionally lifted a longstanding ban on pregnant girls or moms, and ladies who’re — or ever have been — married.
Delegates for every nation had been chosen by way of native pageants that license native rights from the Miss Universe Organization. This 12 months’s contest noticed Cuba, represented by Marianela Ancheta, participate in Miss Universe for the primary time since 1967. Several international locations, together with Belarus, Eritrea and the United Arab Emirates, despatched contestants for the primary time, although in April the Miss Universe Organization moved to dispel a flurry of what it referred to as “false and misleading” reviews that Saudi Arabia was attributable to make its debut within the 2024 pageant.
Some national-level contests had been marred by controversies within the build-up to this 12 months’s ultimate — together with Miss Universe South Africa, which noticed Adetshina give up the competitors (and later be selected to characterize Nigeria) after questions round her nationality sparked a wave of xenophobic hostility.
Last December, the director of the Miss Universe Nicaragua contest, Karen Celebertti, resigned simply weeks after Palacios took the crown, amid fees of conspiracy and treason. She, alongside together with her husband and son, had been accused of involvement in a plot to overthrow the federal government.
Neither Celebertti nor the Nicaraguan authorities responded to NCS’s request for remark.