18 year old student Ashley Lashley was crowned the new Miss Barbados World 2018 at the coronation ceremony at the Barbados Concorde Experience on 7th April 2018.

Lashley will represent Barbados at the Miss World competition in China later this year, where Miss World 2017 Manushi Chhillar will crown her successor. She will be Barbados' first delegate at the contest since 2014. Miss World 2018 can easily be assumed as the comeback year for Barbados to the international pageant, considering it does not lag to send a representative in the coming years.

Speaking to the a section of the media right after the event, Ashley mentioned that she intends to continue promoting her Miss World project which highlights the impact of chronic non-communicable diseases.

Ashley is the daughter of former parliamentarian Hamilton Lashley and Joycelyn Brathwaite. This is not her first pageant win as well, Ashley held office as a former Miss Teen Barbados.

(Courtesy Miss World Barbados Facebook Official)

Stephanie Chase, Miss Barbados World 2001, won the first inaugural Miss World Talent Award. This led to Ms. Chase receiving a five-year contract from AMI/ Sony CEO Eliot Cohen. She recorded in the United Kingdom. A UK tour also in the United Kingdom circa: 2003.

In 1974, Linda Yvonne Field represented Barbados in the Miss World Contest at the Royal Albert Hall in London, England. Linda Fields was a semi-finalist/finalist in that year's pageant making it to the top 10 and placed number eight in the Miss World 1974 contestant. Subsequently, Miss Linda fields has thus far been the only Miss Barbados to place in the top 10 or top 20.

It would be interesting to see if Miss Barbados World 2018 Ashley Lashley will be able to turn this comeback into something out of a fairytale, and bring home the Miss World 2018 crown, first time ever for Barbados.