The Miss World 2026 final took place on the evening of September 5 in Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa with the competition of 111 contestants. The representative of Vietnam, Le Nguyen Bao Ngoc, was successively named in the Top 40, Top 20, Top 12 and finally Top 6.
Milestones in 24 years
Vietnam started sending representatives to participate in Miss World in 2002. In the early stages, the achievements of Vietnamese beauties were still quite modest and had not maintained stability.
In the years that followed, Vietnam gradually had more representatives advancing. Nguyen Thi Huyen entered the Top 15 Miss World 2004, Mai Phuong Thuy continued to be in the Top 17 in 2006.
One of the next memorable milestones appeared in 2015 with Lan Khue. Representing Vietnam, she entered the Top 11 and won the People's Choice Award. Her achievement created great attention in the beauty community at that time.
Four years later, Luong Thuy Linh continued to bring Vietnam into the group of outstanding contestants at Miss World 2019. She entered the Top 12 overall, and also attracted attention in the sub-competitions thanks to her foreign language skills, performance and charity projects.
To Miss World 2021, Do Thi Ha entered the Top 13. Her journey took place in the context of the competition being interrupted and scheduled due to the COVID-19 epidemic, but the Vietnamese representative still advanced deeply in the final night.
Huynh Nguyen Mai Phuong then entered the Top 40 Miss World 2023, Yen Nhi also entered the Top 40. Looking at a long journey, the fact that Vietnam continuously has representatives passing the qualifying rounds shows that the position of Vietnamese contestants in the competition is increasingly consolidated.
Bao Ngoc and the Top 6 milestone
By 2026, Bao Ngoc will continue to push Vietnam's milestone to a new level.
Before the final, she built a fairly uniform performance through the sub-competitions. Bao Ngoc won Top Model Asia - Oceania region, thereby winning the right to enter the Top 40. She also entered Top 20 Head-to-Head, Top 23 Talent, Top 24 Beauty With a Purpose and together with her teammates won Head Chef Beauty.
The final night also witnessed the stable performance of the home team representative.
From Top 40, Bao Ngoc continued to be named in the Top 20 and Top 12. In the Top 12 Q&A session, when asked what she wanted the world to understand more about her homeland, the beauty talked about a Vietnam that has gone through many challenges but always has the strength to move forward. She also expressed her desire to use her voice for environmental, social and humanitarian issues.
Bao Ngoc then became the representative of Asia - Oceania to advance into the Top 6.
Looking back at the 24-year journey, the achievements of Vietnamese representatives at Miss World do not follow a straight line and the format of the competition also changes over time. Therefore, putting the ranking of each beauty on the scale does not fully reflect the journey of each season.
The more notable point is that Vietnam has had consecutive milestones: from the first times entering the Top 15, Top 17 to Top 11, Top 12, Top 13 and now Top 6.
Bao Ngoc therefore not only closed Miss World 2026 with personal achievements. Her Top 6 also became a new milestone in Vietnam's 24-year journey at Miss World, showing that Vietnamese representatives are increasingly likely to go deep in this beauty arena.
