Miss Universe 2014 comes to Miami ! Events leading up to Miss Universe....Part 4

January 21, 2015

PageantSmart attends Miss Universe Preliminary Competition & National Costume Pre-Taping


The much anticipated night of the Miss Universe Official Preliminary (Swimsuit and Evening Gown) Competition finally had arrived. As we pulled into the FIU Campus, you immediately could feel the excitement in the air. As with most events leading up to tonight, the largest group of supporters belonged to Venezuela, Colombia and Puerto Rico. As special guests of FIU, we were seated in great seats on the main floor. It was extra special to be able to share the evening with Ricky, Jackie, Maria and Anselmo.

The crowd went crazy as the first group of contestants took the stage! The contestants were all dressed in vibrant Sherri Hill cocktail dresses in shades of blue, yellow, pink , green and purple. I am pretty sure the girls were excited to finally start the competition after many tireless hours of rehearsals not to mention all the hard work up until this time. From the get go, Argentina, Australia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Gabon, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Thailand, Ukraine, USA and Venezuela all seemed as bonafide contenders to make the first cut on their way to the crown.

Immediately after the introductions, the official preliminary evening gown competition started.
Lots of white, red and silver gowns. My favorite gowns were Colombia, Spain and USA.

One of those fun unexpected moments was during the pre-taped City of Doral segment, I caught a glimpse of a group of us on the big screen ....Rick, Debbie, Marie, Carlos, Lulu, Barby and me in the shades!

On to the swimsuit competition and as with most pageants, this separated the pretenders from the contenders. Best swimsuit bodies in my opinion belonged to Argentina, Colombia, Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine and USA

After the preliminary competition I had my top 3: Spain, USA and Colombia. 

The pre-taping of the national costume competition was very interesting to observe. The national costumes ranged from overly simple & understated to tacky to colorful to spectacular. Amazingly enough sometimes it took 3 or 4 takes for a contestant to say their name and country! My favorite top 5 national costumes were Argentina, India, Russia, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

 Argentina

 Canada

 Costa Rica

 Guatemala

 India

 Indonesia

 Korea

 Nicaragua

 Russia

 Spain

 USA

Miss Universe 2014 comes to Miami ! Events leading up to Miss Universe....Part 3

January 11, 2015
PageantSmart attends City of Doral Nation's Parade


The Miss Universe festivities continued on Sunday with an all out Parade of Nations in the City of Doral. The 1 mile + parade route snaked around the city hall and business area of Doral.

Lots of passionate attendees waiving their flags from mostly the Caribbean, Central, North and South America : Peru, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, USA, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Panama were the most visible. The 88 delegates competing for the title of Miss Universe 2014 were atop approximately 8 to 10 floats interspersed with dance groups from across the America's. The afternoon was made even more fun by seeing PageantSmart friends like Sophie, Leeza, Isabel, Ashli, Lulu, Grant, Lisa, Gigi, Olivia, Marie, Debbie, Carlos, Laura, Kelly and many more.

It was especially fun to see Miss Guam, Brittany Bell, who I might say has a great pitching arm, as she hit me with a bullseye of a rose flower toss my way. Nia, Miss USA, as always was having a blast and all smiles as the host delegate. Venezuela had  by far the largest number of fans, which was no surprise as Doral is locally known in Miami as Doralzuela due to the large number of Venezuelans who now call it home.

After the parade concluded, and a little Florida liquid sunshine came through the afternoon sky, it was time for all the 88 delegates to introduce themselves on the Main Stage. While it took on average about 10 seconds for each delegate to introduce themselves, it became quite evident the contestants that were very comfortable in from of a large crowd of over thousands of people. Easily the crowd favorites by applause were Brazil, Colombia, USA, Venezuela and Spain.

Below are some pictures from that great afternoon.