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The 71st Miss Universe competition was held at the the New Orleans Morial Convention Center in New Orleans on Saturday, January 14, 2023, and was streamed live on the Roku channel at 8 pm ET. Wearing a green swimsuit and a large feathered costume during the costume round, Miss Colombia María Fernanda Aristizábal dazzled the audience with her looks in the preliminary round of the competition, which took place on January 11.
However, despite wearing a cape during the swimsuit round to spread the word about saving water, Miss Colombia failed to find herself among the top five contestants of the evening. Viewers of the competition were shocked after the announcement and felt that she deserved to win the competition.
Fans upset with Miss Universe 2022 organizers as María Fernanda gets dropped from the competition
Garnering an impressive number of votes from the public and the judges, María Fernanda qualified for the top 16 semi-finalists of the Miss Universe competition. Unfortunately, she failed to impress the 10-person committee during her final swimsuit and evening gown round.
Fans wanted 25-year-old María Fernanda to win the competition after her dazzling performance and were upset with the judges for not selecting her for the top-five spot. Check out some fan reactions below:
María Aristizábal is an engineer who loves learning new languages
25-year-old María Aristizábal is from Costa Rica. She is a civil engineer and loves to learn new languages. Aristizábal recently graduated with a degree, her third, in Portuguese and also wants to learn the Costa Rican sign language.
Aristizábal is involved in many sports and extra-curricular activities like ballet and swimming. She is the founder of Unbreakable Dreams, a non-profit organization that aims to support young children’s goals and aspirations. The former contestant is also an advocate for the rights of women and wants them to pursue their dreams and the careers they want without any fear of prejudice.
Aristizábal is a member of The Clean Wave and the Lions Club International of Costa Rica. She also works as the director of the Mariano Juvenil Association.
Snippets from the competition
The 71st Miss Universe pageant was held at the New Orleans Morial Convention Center in Louisiana, where Harnaaz Kaur crowned her successor. The event was hosted by make-up artist Jeannie Mai and Miss Universe 2012 Olivia Culpo. Zuri Hall and Catriona Gray were backstage correspondents, making it an all-female presenting panel for the first time in the history of the Miss Universe pageant.
The description of the event reads,
"Contestants from different parts of the world participate in the 2022 edition of the prestigious beauty pageant of Miss Universe to compete against each other and secure the crown."
Out of the 84 contestants, only 16 reached the semi-finals, which included Australia (Monique Riley), Canada (Amelia Tu), Colombia (María Fernanda Aristizábal), Haiti (Mideline Phelizor), India (Divita Rai), Laos (Payengxa Lor), Peru (Alessia Rovegno), Portugal (Telma Madeira), South Africa (Ndavi Nokeri), Spain (Alicia Faubel), Trinidad and Tobago (Tya Jané Ramey). After a swimming and an evening gown round, the following contestants made it to the top five:
- Ashley Cariño: Puerto Rico
- Andreína Martínez: Dominican Republic
- R'Bonney Gabriel: United States
- Gabriëla Dos Santos: Curaçao
- Amanda Dudamel: Venezuela
Andreína Martínez was crowed the second runner-up while Amanda Dudamel became the first runner-up.
Miss USA R'Bonney Gabriel won the title of Miss Universe 2022. Anna Sueangam-iam won the Social Impact award while Maxine Formosa and Sofia Depassier won the Miss Congeniality.
