We all remember the scandalous Miss Tourism World re-run. It was truly a blunder on the part of the organisers and left many dismayed. But the main people caught in the crossfire were the beauty queens that had made it to the finals of the pageant.
Miss Great Britain 2017/2018 Saffron Hart was one of these unfortunate girls that were embarrassed during the same commotion. Saffron Hart was one of the three girls that were in the original Top 5 before the re-run. The beauty queen had kept mum on the whole fiasco as she took some time off and recovered from the disaster that Miss Tourism World 2017/2018.
On January 27, Miss Colombia 2017, Laura Gonzalez Ospina was crowned the new Miss Tourism World. Colombia, Mongolia, Great Britain, Venezuela and Panama were selected as the Top 5 to compete for the crown. After the Top 5 had completed the final onstage question, it was announced that there was a technical mistake in the judges’ points and that they needed to restart the final, then calling the Top 15 back on stage. There were only two from the original top 5 that stayed on: Colombia and Mongolia. Great Britain, Venezuela and Panama were replaced by Malaysia, Peru, and Serbia in the new ranking.
(Photo Credit - Saffron Rose Hart Facebook Official)
“I was so in shock that I couldn’t believe that this farce was happening. The other girls were more outraged than I was. Everybody was so embarrassed. People were crying,” hart recollected the sore memory.
“I’m no sore loser,” Hart said.” I’m just disgusted that we were all treated so appallingly. This has put me off beauty pageants for life.”
Irrespective of being replaced in the finals or not, all the girls collectively felt the embarrassment of the mistake.
“Only 18 girls went back on stage when the winner was eventually crowned, including myself,” Hart said. “But it wasn’t the winner’s, Miss Colombia’s fault! They left us standing on stage for 20 minutes before myself, Miss Panama and Miss Venezuela didn’t make the re-count, and we all went off stage.”
Hart revealed the financial and emotional aspect of this blunder from her family’s point of view as well.
“My mum, my stepdad and I had spent £7,000 and we’d all taken three weeks off work to travel to the other side of the world for a contest where we’d get to experience different cultures, ” Hart said. “But instead, all I did was rehearse all day and night and, on my limited time off, tour building sites that the sponsor was promoting.”
When her parents arrived, Hart was so busy they barely got to see her. Rehearsals for the final show were daily and often lasted until 5 a.m. as the contestants were learning and perfecting a complicated dance routine for the final show. In her only free time, she was taken around, along with the other girls, all the developments that are managed by Kerjaya Prospek, a sponsor and firm that built the Swiss Garden Hotel, where they were all staying at.
“I didn’t mind all the work and the tours,” Hart said. “I was just really excited to be representing Great Britain at this global event. Then I made the line-up for the final five. I was delighted! The Miss Tourism World team didn’t even acknowledge us girls afterward, never mind apologize. And I flew home with one of them two days later.”
The emotional trauma that the girls went through was surely a lesson for all pageant organisers. To put the girls through such stress, definitely brought to light the mismanagement of Miss Tourism World.