Salt licks and Beatniks: You Pick Miss World

Well, the results have been tabulated and the winners from each group are:

South Europe - Miss Albania
Americas - Miss Canada
Asia Pacific - Miss Australia
Caribbean - Miss Martinique
Africa - Miss Ethiopia
North Europe - Miss Denmark

Instead of breaking ties and only taking the top two from each group, I've decided to include all the women tied for second in each group (except for the Caribbean group, where Miss Martinique was the only contestant with more than one vote). The reason for this is that I checked out the contestants' photo pages on the official Miss World website. Seeing multiple pictures can make a big difference in elevating or lowering a contestant's chances. To be fair, I wanted to give you all the opportunity to incorporate those images into your judging process before you vote on your final choices. Unfortunately, it's late and I don't have time to post the pictures here, so you'll have to click the links to view them. I recommend that you do, because your opinions may certainly change once you see more.

Before I introduce all the finalists, let me be clear about how the voting will work in this round. Vote only ONCE! That means only one comment. In your comment list your top five, numbered 1-5, in the order you would like them to finish; with 1 meaning first place and 5 meaning fifth. The places have weighted point values. A 1st place vote is worth 5 points, 2nd is worth 4 points, 3rd is worth 3 points, 4th place is worth 2 points, and 5th place is worth 1 point. The contestant with the highest point total will win the title Miss World (at least on this blog). In the event of a tie we will have a lightning round vote between the tied contestants only, with a winner declared by simple majority vote.

Here are the 18 finalists, in alphabetical order. Make sure you click the links for additional photos.