Korean Beauty Named Miss World Asia-Pacific
By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter
Miss Korea Kim Joo-ri won the Asia-Pacific Continental Queen of Beauty award at the Miss World pageant held Saturday in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The 21-year-old was among the 16 contestants ― from a total of 112 international contestants ― to make the semifinals, as a representative of the Asia-Pacific region. But Kim did not make the list of seven finalists.
Kaiane Aldorino from Gibraltar, 23, was named the new Miss World while Miss Mexico, Perla Beltran Acosta, 23, was the first runner-up. The second runner-up was Miss South Africa, Tatum Keshwar, 25.
An aspiring diplomat, Kim is a multilingual ballerina who specialized in Korean traditional dance at Sunhwa Arts School, Seoul, and ballet at Russia's Bolshoi Ballet School.
She was specially requested by the Miss World organizing committee to perform a traditional Korean dance sequence to ``Arirang,'' a popular folk song, during the course of the two-hour-long competition. The event, which opened in the South African city ahead of the 2010 World Cup, was broadcast live by the United S
Dec 13, 2009