On top of the world

Press, 20 November 1982, Page 8

On top of the world

NZPA London The new Miss World, Mariasela Alvarez Lebron, aged 22, of the Dominican Republic, started her oneyear reign in the traditional fashion yesterday — at the Miss World Coronation Bali. More than 1000 people packed the great room of London’s plush Grosvenor House Hotel for dinner and dancing. Earlier, at the Royal Albert Hall, the lanky Santa Domingo university student, with chestnut-brown hair and

eyes to match, beat 67 other national, beauty queens to win the world’s most coveted beauty contest, now in its thirty-second year. She said that she would have been happy with a place in the final seven, but was amazed at winning. “I never expected to be crowned. When it all started, I hoped to get a final place but not to be crowned.” Speaking in broken English, the first-year architecture student, the youngest of four children and daughter

of a biology professor, told reporters her victory , was “a great thing for my country. We are a poor country. But we have a very kind people, ’ v she said. In second place was Miss Finland, Sari Kaarina Aspholm, aged 20, with Della Dolan, aged 20, the popular United Kingdom entrj, in third spot. It was the Dominican Republic’s first success in the prestigious beauty contest. Miss New Zealand, Susan Mainland, was unplaced.