Miss World British Virgin Islands 2019, Rikkiya Brathwaite, won the Sports Competition at the Miss World 2019 International Sports Day. Rikkiya was part of the Green team which won gold having secured highest score. With the win, Rikkiya moves forward to Top 40 of Miss World 2019 and becomes the first contestant to become the quarter-finalist of Miss World 2019.
Miss World Nigeria 2019 (Nyekachi Douglas) and Miss World Trinidad & Tobago 2019 (Tya Janè Ramey) were the first and second runner-up respectively of the sports competition.
On winning, Rikkiya said, “I am honestly very overwhelmed. I am not an athlete by any means! I gave up track and field at the age of seven for ballet shoes and a stage. But I come from a very athletic family so it must still be somewhere in my DNA still. I am just truly grateful to come from a country with a competitive heart when it comes to track and sports.”
“Entering each event, I carried the notion that whether the BVI maybe small and may not easily stand out in a competition with 120 girls, we have an enormous and resilient heart. And that notion gave me the confidence to compete only for the number one spot! Because the BVI is number one in my heart.”
Sports competition, one of the fast track events of Miss World pageant, was held at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre. The winner of this fast track event is guaranteed a place in the Top 40 at the Miss World Final to be held on 14th December.
The 32 contestants who were shortlisted basis fitness tests to compete in the sports competition were divided into four teams – Red, Blue, Green and Yellow, and the teams and their participants then competed in a number of physical challenges.
The compositions of various teams were –
Red Team (Angola, Cook Islands, Equatorial Guinea, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Luxembourg, Moldova, and Panama)
Yellow Team (Aruba, Belarus, Costa Rica, Georgia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and USA)
Green Team (British Virgin Islands, Canada, England, France, Japan, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Trinidad & Tobago)
Blue Team (Honduras, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Scotland, Spain and Uganda)
Congratulations Rikkiya!