The Oscars of beauty pageants continue with the winners in the pageants’ categories! And the Yulia goes to…
INTERNATIONAL PAGEANTS
Best Host City
WINNER: Xi’an, China (Miss Tourism Queen)
2nd place: São Paulo, Brazil (Miss Universe)
3rd place: London, England (Miss World)
GB comment: No other city got so involved and sponsored so many activities to promote the city and the pageant as Xi’an (Miss Tourism Queen International). It was so to a point, that there were totems of all participating beauties spread throughout the city! São Paulo (Universe), London (England), and Chengdu (International), fought hard for the silver and bronze Yulias, with São Paulo (Universe) ending in 2nd, and London (World) in 3rd place.
Best Official Website
WINNER: Miss Universe
2nd place: Miss International
3rd place: Miss World
GB comment: Hands down and by unanimity, missuniverse.com gets the big prize in the Best Website category. It’s well-designed, informative, interactive, fast, constantly updated and has made photos and information available to the press like no other, making it easier for the pageant to be promoted worldwide (an example to be followed). Miss International, Miss World, and Miss Earth, have ‘ok’ websites, with much room for improvement. However, Miss Tourism Queen, and especially Miss Supranational, are very weak and truly need to work on their websites in order to deliver something up to the caliber of both pageants.
Best Pre-Pageant Activities
WINNER: Miss Tourism Queen
2nd place: Miss World
3rd place: Miss Universe
GB comment: From day one to the very end, Miss Tourism Queen candidates really got to experience Xi’an in a series of cultural and tourism activities. They’ve spent time with locals, learned about and tasted the local food, visited the world-famous Xi’an Warriors, and had the most amazing experience on Christmas Eve, being taken on train to a giant Christmas tree located in the city’s main square right before midnight, and then enjoyed themselves in a very special and fun Christmas party. Miss World came in 2nd thanks to its point-system events (former fast-track), which always get media and pageant fans’ attention, and Miss Universe was 3rd thanks to its Presentation Show and activities in São Paulo. Miss International and Miss Earth also had lots of pre-pageant activities and placed 4th and 5th, respectively. Miss Supranational has improved, but still needs to make the pageant more attractive in the weeks preceding the final show.
Best Stage Production
WINNER – Miss Supranational
2nd place – Miss International
3rd place – Miss Tourism Queen
GB comment: For the 2nd consecutive year, Miss Supranational tops the stage production award, but this time nearly tied with Miss International, which surprised us all with a huge and very unique stage. Miss Tourism Queen came in 3rd place with the amazing special effects created during the telecast (although the flowers on the tip of it were completely uncalled for). The two ‘big ones’, Miss Universe and Miss World, had nice stages, but nothing outstanding (and yes, we expect OUTSTANDING when we talk about these two…). Miss Earth had the weakest one by far, which was dark, and was no even close to some of the stages it presented few years ago.
Best Television Pageant Production
WINNER: Miss International
2nd place: Miss Supranational
3rd place: Miss Universe
GB comment: Just like it happened in the stage production category, Miss International and Miss Supranational fought for the best television production prize vote-by-vote, and this time Miss International got the extra edge. It was a huge come-back for Miss International, the pageant with, by far, the weakest production a few years back. It was entertaining, had great music, showed all the delegates and finalists in details. Miss Supranational has great camera and light work, good music, and an exciting competition for the most part of it (it needs improvement on the winner’s and continental queens announcements, who by the way are not really continental queens – same goes for MTQI – something that truly should go). Miss Universe showed some primary mistakes, like in the parade of nations, when one contestant spoke, and the cameras were on another (something we did not see happening in Miss Universe since the 1980′s. Plus, MUO did not dare to innovate, like it did in the great Miss USA pageant. Miss World has improved and became more exciting with its new leaderboard, however, it still misses on-stage competition, the element which makes pageants really exciting. Miss Tourism Queen has improved but still needs to work on its parade of nations. Miss Earth was entertaining, but in terms of tv image quality and innovation, it scored really low. It insists on copying Miss Universe elements from the past, which is a huge mistake, since in its beginning, 10 years ago, it was much more creative and unique (reason why GB included it in the Grand Slam).
Best Group of Candidates
WINNER: Miss World
2nd place: Miss International
3rd place: Miss Universe
Miss World, once again and not surprisingly, takes the award for the best overall group of candidates. Miss International was the surprise of the year, outdoing Miss Universe, 3rd place, by little and finishing 2nd. Miss Supranational ranked in 4th place, Miss Tourism Queen in 5th, and Miss Earth in 6th.
Best Presenter
WINNER: Jason Cook (Miss World)
2nd place: Andy Cohen (Miss Universe)
3rd place: Angela Chow (Miss World)
GB comment: Miss World truly got it right bringing American actor Jason Cook to the scene. He took the spotlight (and this award) from Angela Chow, after several years as the winner. As a matter of fact, the chemistry among Jason Cook, Angela Chow, and anchorman Steve Douglas, was perfect, adding tremendous quality to the show. Andy Cohen came 2nd, having done an excellent job in Miss Universe, and Angela Chow was 3rd, very close to Natalie Morales (4th). Miss Earth also had good presenters, like Jason Godfrey (5th place). Miss Supranational’s weak script did not help its presenters, and Miss Tourism Queen needs more life and excitement in its hosts.
Best Media and Press Promotion
WINNER – Miss Universe
2nd place – Miss World
3rd place – Miss Earth
GB comment: In terms of media promotion, Miss Universe remains unbeatable. Not only it knows how to use its website, Facebook page and twitter like no other pageant, but it also organizes a series of press conferences in the weeks preceding the pageant’s final event, and makes photos and press releases available to the general media. Miss World is more protective of its press information, however, being the most popular pageant in over 70% of the countries in the world, it naturally attracts press attention. Miss Earth has an army of Filipino pageant fans promoting it on the internet, and it hires international news agencies to promote the pageant, which is a positive thing. Miss International comes next, followed by Miss Tourism Queen and Miss Supranational, which are growing fast, but need a hand from international news agencies to make them better known in most countries.
Most watched show on television
WINNER – Miss World
2nd place – Miss Universe
3rd place – Miss Supranational
GB comment: Miss World is watched live in over 120 countries, in all continents, followed by Miss Universe, watched live in the whole of the Americas, but not in most other continents (with exceptions like the Philippines and a couple of other countries in Asia and Europe). Speaking of delayed broadcasts, Miss World may reach over 170 countries and territories, Miss Universe 100, and Miss Supranational 74 (a great number for the youngest Grand Slam pageant around). Thanks to Star TV, Miss Earth comes in 4th place in number of countries, but it’s outnumbered by Miss Tourism Queen and International in total audience, thanks to the millions of Chinese who watch both pageants on tv.
Best Candidates’ Official Photos
WINNER – Miss Tourism Queen
2nd place – Miss Universe
3rd place – Miss International
GB comment: Miss TQI photographer May Chai (from Supermodels Studio) did a hell of a job capturing the beauty of the 92 candidates with the greatest sightseeings of Xi’an as background, beating Miss Universe’s great Fadil Berisha, who once again did a very good job, but could’ve been more creative having Brazil and its rich culture as theme (we are still trying to figure why the girls were photographed wearing belly dancing fantasies!). All others came much behind (Miss World did not have official photos).
Most Outstanding Social Work
WINNER – Miss World
2nd place – Miss Universe
3rd place – Miss Earth
Julia Morley’s Beauty With a Purpose keeps on raising millions of dollars for needy children and people in general worldwide. Miss World encourages young ladies in all of its 120 participating countries to do voluntary work and embrace important social causes. In this category, it won the trophy by unanimity. Miss Universe comes next, supporting noble causes like the fight against breast cancer and others. Miss Earth could do much more for environment protection than it does, but yet, the Miss Earth winners work more for its chosen cause than Miss International, Miss Tourism Queen and Miss Supranational titleholders (who we barely hear of during their reigns).
Best Pageant of the Year
WINNER – Miss World
2nd place – Miss Universe
3rd place – Miss International
In overall terms, two pageants actually fight for the biggest award of the year: Miss World and Miss Universe. Miss World remains by far the most watched beauty pageant on global television, it had the strongest group of competitors, dared to innovate, with its new leaderboard, and had the best winner of 2011, therefore, it deserves to top this category once again. However, it must improve its tv production even further, bringing back on stage competitions to the final show, especially for the top 15 (most pageant fans wonder how the judges narrow down the group of 15 semi-finalists to the 7 finalists). Although Miss Universe has the most exciting on-stage competitions, in 2011 it committed some primary broadcast mistakes (like in the parade of nations) and was involved with scandals, such as the participation and placement of Miss Brazil – the hometown girl – who appeared topless on photos released all over the media, breaking its own rules. After an amazing Miss USA production, perhaps the best produced pageant of the year, people’s expectations on Miss Universe were high, but unfortunately Miss Universe did not bring any new or exciting elements to its production (only the ‘fans’ scores’, criticized by most and very confusing for the home audience). Miss International did an extraordinary comeback, with a greatly produced pageant, finishing in 3rd place, which, in this case, tastes like gold, after all, it left behind Miss Tourism Queen (4th), Miss Supranational (5th) and Miss Earth (6th).
NATIONAL PAGEANTS
And the Yulia goes to…
Best National Director
WINNER – Osmel Souza (Miss Venezuela)
2nd place – Stela Marquez (Binibining Pilipinas)
3rd place – María del Carmen de Aguayo (Miss Ecuador)
Best National Pageant Website
WINNER – Miss France
2nd place – Miss USA
3rd place – Ceska Miss
Country of the Year
WINNER – Venezuela
2nd place – Philippines
3rd place – Brazil
Best National Pageant
WINNER – Miss USA
2nd place – Miss France
3rd place – Miss Bulgaria
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL WINNERS!!!
See more caregories’ winners HERE
The Yulia
The Yulia, GB’s virtual trophy given to the GB Awards winners since its first edition, was created by Greg Borowski in 1999. It was named after Yulia Lemigova, Miss USSR Universe 1991, elected by GB the most beautiful Grand Slam candidate in the XX century.
Wait a minute the boring Miss World pageant beat out Miss Universe???? And the reason being is because your judging the 2011 pageant to its previous years production????? Wouldn’t you have done the same for Miss World as well, judging it based on previous production???
Mind boggling……..
Yes, the boring Miss World pageant beat out Miss Universe. Now go take your pill.
Well, in Brazil, beyond a handful of fanatic fans for beauty pageants, no one knows what this ‘Miss World’ contest is.
With Miss Universe it is the same. In general, Brazil is not “pageant-crazy”.
Miss Universe is the best. Just take a quick look to these replies if you want to take into consideration people’s comments (of course!!!). Good luck GB and its boring miss world (so bored…)
It is your opinion and it’s respected, but you can’t speak for the majority as if it was your own.
Admin, what about the top-10 of the former ranking ( the most beautiful gs-candidate of the XX century with Y.Lemigova on the top), I asked for earlier? Nobody else answered Me.
there’s alot of that “tourism” ek ek pageant nowadays… i’m getting confused… hahahahah
for me there’s only four universe,world,international, and earth…. trying to like supranational.. but i don’t know… we’ll see…
nice
Miss Universe is the best pageant of the year!!!!
Best Television Pageant Production is Miss Universe.
It was really interesting more than any other international pageants.
I thought the Miss World presenters were terrible. At times it seemed Jason Cook didn’t know where he was and he spoke directly to Venezuela when just seconds before they announced that she didn’t speak any English. Angela Chow was incredibly corny, there were always awkward pauses after she cracked a joke.
I didn’t know,that Y.Lemigova was Nr.1 in your expert poll of “The most beautiful GS-contestant of the XX century “( the “Yulia” prize is called after this beauty from Moscow).Who was in the top-10 of that ranking? Though I am from Russia, I can’t believe that she overstripped A.Rai or M.Mercado.
Yulia was the 1st runner-up to Mariya Kezha in Miss USSR 1990. She was sent to Miss Universe 1991 due to the original winner, Mariya Kezha decided to get married. That’s why Yulia went to Miss Universe.:)
miss earth should stop putting ambassador of different embassy in Manila as judges because mostly their decision is always politically motivated. it is the reason why miss Philippines is always in the semi final. their judges should be more diverse coming from different background and nationality.
the 2011 miss USA pageant was the most inspirational pageant all the year with the most favoritism won the pageant a redhead californian “Alyssa Campanella” , by the way, GB, don’t chu make some rewards for the male pageant, such as award, or maybe mr Grand Slam, i believe that male pageant contestants are waiting out there to the award!
hopefully you guyz are gonna consider it. 
miss universe is the best………………
miss earth flush down tothe best ranking because of manipulating the result of putting in miss philippines atheena imperial as one of the most undeserving runners up in the face ofthe world pageant what a BIG BIG BIGMISTAKE THAT CATHY UNTALAN DID
Miss Universe did not win pageant of the year because their 2011 production was not up to par with the pageants they put up in the past. For a pageant like Miss Universe, the show and staging was very weak. Hope they correct that for 2012.
what about male pageant, don’t you guys make the award for those 3 grand slam male pageant ( mr. intl 2011, manhunt international 2011, mr universe model 2011) don’t you guys also make a face male of the year and mr grand slam pageant 2011!! thx you!!
I’m really surprised why Miss World won Best Pageant of the year… Miss Universe should have won the award. you have to know why MW is watched by more than 1 billion people live; it’s cheap for broadcasting fee. In my country, MW is not as popular as Miss Universe, although MU was delayed on TV but it’s really popular. And i know that the broadcasting fee of MU is really expensive that’s why its viewers is not as many as MW. Peace!:)
My dear, how do you know how much Miss World charge for its telecast? And even if it wanted to offer the pageant FOR FREE, what would the problem be? Fact is: it is the most watched beauty pageant on Earth. Good for them. Thanks for visiting GB and sharing your opinion with us.
Thanks for your respond to my comments.
GB, why do you not make the award for male pageants?
ecuador best national director bacuase it produced 2 titles this year followed by venezuela and philippines.
miss earth should be given best opening dance number, it was really great watch it in youtube.
you should have awards for best crown and sash.
¡¡¡¡¡Arriba Venezuela!!!!!
So far I didn’t heard so much about the Miss Bulgaria pageant… seems it was a great one. I was expecting Miss Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Ukraine or Russia instead of Bulgaria in the 3rd place of Best national pageant.
i still wonder how miss world choose their winner after top 15 without any stage competition for the judges to have a basis in choosing for their top 7 and eventual winner. how can you called this a fair competition if there is no actual competition at all.
Perhaps if you read the comments and reasons why we decided to pick each of the winners, you will understand it. Cheers!
sorry for the confusion, but i am referring to the miss world system and not to the GB. anyway thank u for your responsed and although i dont agree with some of your winners but still i am happy with the result. goodluck GB!!!!
Thanks, Bart! And please remember: this is our opinion, our thoughts. Each person is entitled to his/her own opinions, which all should be respected.
yeah, it’s true that we have to respect one’s opinion, regardless if we agree or not, we should learned how to be a civilized individual in the internet. anyway, i agree with all your comments with regards to the miss earth pageant. if they want to sustained the interest of the general public and the pageant fans, they should make a drastic move to change the format of the pageant. they should be innovative enough, to make their pageant unique, originals and not a cheap copy of the miss universe pageant. its so sad to know that you are copying from other pageant and yet you look so cheap than the original. if you want to copy the format of others pageant be sure that yours is much far better than the original.i am pilipino and i know pilipinos are creative and innovative they should think more and use their talent to make this pageant relevant and exciting. thanks
i’m surprised the miss world website even made 3rd place. if you look at the list of contestants for 2011 it still includes a number of nations (with photograph) who
for one reason or another didn’t enter
I don’t know why miss world should deserve the best pageant of the year? The production for 2011 was not as good as previous. More importantly, the broadcasting is not widely coverage, for instance there is no broadcasting in Malaysia at all
I still do not care for the Miss World Pageant.My favorite is Miss Universe. I like seeing national costumes,swimsuit, and evening gown competitions and interviews. I do not care to see the contestants compete in fast track competitions in sports, in talent(if I want talent competitions I’ll watch and prefer Miss America), in catwalk (i’ll watch ANTM) etc. I did like the old Miss World pageants from the 80′s with the basics. I also liked their continental queens of beauty-recognizing and appreciating different types of beauty- with the only negative being that sometimes the best representative for one continent was way below many of the contestants from other continents, so the top 5 or 6 ? were not necessarily the top 5 or 6 most beautiful “in the world”. In Miss Universe i did not like it years bk when they tried to go the Rock Show format with boring musical groups taking up so much time, nor the reality show type segments they’ve tried to introduce in the recent past. Would prefer more and complete national costume presentation on the telecast. Also on MW-altho I like seeing all the contestants in their gowns, when they bring them out several at a time without any announcement of their countries nor wearing their sashes, its kind of confusing. (once again prefer MW of the 80′s)Also the tapes I’ve watched of recent MW pageants- most of the camera shots were too far distance away. I prefer more closeup viewing of the contestants.
Best National Pageant should be Miss France
Miss Universe is still the best production. I have seen Ms Supranational … oh just so so….. I am sure majority will agree that if one was to chose what they want to watch, it’s got to be Miss Universe. The ultimate and most talked about Beauty pageant in the world.
I like all your tops!!! CONGRATULATIONS! But the best national pageant for me now is Miss Russia with the most beautiful natural girls!!! and I adore Miss World…
ecuador: country of the year
In your dreams! … Venezuela hands down the winner, but the most impressive part to me is that they have done it for 5 consecutive years!, and looking at the candidates for 2012, they could easily do it for 6th!! Kudos to them.
patrick… if it is called “country of the year” it is not important what that country has done “for 5 consecutive years”. of course venezuela did good this year but it is weird to me that ecuador that has 2 crowns in two of the most important competiions is note even listed. in the olympics (a much more exact competition to see what country is the winner among all the countries every four years) the DECISIVE matter to decide that comes from the gold medals, despite how many silver or bronce medals you got. very bad judging system is this if does not see the importance of two crowns this year.
Miss Earth and Miss International do not have the same value in the ranking as World and Universe (the 2 big ones), which are worth double. A 1st runner-up in Miss Universe earns 39 points, while a Miss Earth/International winners earns 20. And the ranking is vital to announce the country of the year. Not to mention that Ecuador failed to make the finals in both contests (U and W), so the points did not add up.
Why isn’t Ecuador country of the year? Didn’t that country win Miss Earth and Miss International?
Miss Earth and Miss International are worth half the points of Miss World and Miss Universe (the two most important). Ecuador did not advance to the semi finals in neither of these.
Ecuador had a good year, but they didn’t advance to the semifinals in 4 of the six Grand Slam pageants(in fact, if you go to GB’s ranking, they’re not even in the top 5 country for 2011). Venezuela advanced in 5 of the six; plus they won one of the 2 most important ones and was 1st runner up in MI. Collectively Venezuela was by far the most dominant country of the year. Well deserved!!!!
All’s fair..good job.
Osmel and Ivian had an amazing year, go Venezuela!!!!.
Also her plastic surgeons had an amazing year!
‘Her’plastic surgeons?. Do you mean Lupita Jones’s plastics surgeons?, because we know for a fact she had surgery, twice. We don’t know for a fact Ivian did, or Caroline. Do you have any evidence other than your own hateful bias?. You are just another bitter, Venezuela-obsessed hater who thinks 1- All contestants from Venezuela have surgery, 2- Only girls from Venezuela have surgery. Newsflash: Girls in the US, Mexico, Brazil, many parts of Asia and even Africa do it and they never get any criticism because of prejudices. But that doesn’t change Ivian’s amazing year one bit pal!!!, deal with it!. Peace!!:D
envy!!!!