Appearance is not a decisive factor
In terms of appearance, it is difficult to think that Bao Ngoc is not suitable for Miss World. She is 1.86m tall, has a balanced physique, a delicate face and has experience in international beauty pageants.
More importantly, Bao Ngoc won Top Model Asia - Oceania region. This is a direct proof that her image and performance ability are highly appreciated by the competition.
New Miss World Joheirry Mola of the Dominican Republic is also the winner of the regional Top Model. This shows that her fashionable and sharp appearance is not a disadvantage at Miss World.
However, Miss World has long not chosen the winner based only on appearance. Beauty helps Bao Ngoc go deep, but it is not enough to create an absolute advantage when entering the group of six strongest people.
Comprehensive achievement but no decisive victory
Bao Ngoc is one of the contestants who appeared in many sub-achievement charts: winning Top Model Asia - Oceania, Top 20 Head-to-Head, Top 24 Beauty With a Purpose, Top 23 Talent and winning Head Chef Beauty with the team.
The noteworthy point is that in addition to Top Model, she went deep but did not win challenges heavily associated with communication and social activities.
Bao Ngoc entered the Top 20 Head-to-Head but did not win. With Beauty With a Purpose, the Gen Zero project helped her enter the Top 24 but did not go further.
Meanwhile, Beauty With a Purpose continues to play a central role in Miss World's selection of the winner. Malaysian representative Taanusiya Chetty won this challenge, entered the Top 6 and then won 2nd runner-up.
Thus, Bao Ngoc's achievement chart is very broad but does not have an absolute advantage in the criterion of being considered the "soul" of Miss World.
Gen Zero is large-scale but difficult to create immediate emotions
Bao Ngoc's Gen Zero project focuses on climate change, sustainable development and the role of young people.
This is a global issue and suitable for her academic background and orientation to become a policy maker. However, it is also a broad and quite macro topic.
In a beauty contest, turning concepts like climate change, policies or sustainable development into a close personal story is a difficult problem.
Conversely, the new Miss Joheirry Mola pursues a project to help children and teenagers in difficult communities access English. The story has clear beneficiaries, easy to imagine, and she continued to emphasize it in the Q&A round.
The difference therefore does not necessarily lie in the scale or value of the project, but in the ability to turn the project into a memorable story about the contestants themselves.
Bao Ngoc is stronger in reason than emotion
This is also a characteristic that appears throughout the journey of the Vietnamese representative.
Bao Ngoc has good English, social knowledge and reasoning ability. However, in some presentations, she brought a lot of information and concepts into the answers.
In the Top 6, when asked to define success, Bao Ngoc went from the story of parents becoming doctors to dedication, orientation to become policy makers, climate change, communities losing land and the future of young people.
The answer has depth but has to bear many layers of ideas in a short time. During the presentation, she also had a moment of stumbling words in English and then quickly handled them.
It is impossible to say that this mistake caused Bao Ngoc to lose her title. But in the final round, when the level of the six contestants is not much different, a shorter, more personal and more direct emotional answer can easily leave an impression.
Opponent too strong
Finally, Bao Ngoc's Top 6 needs to be viewed in relation to competitors.
Joheirry Mola not only has an outstanding appearance but also won regional Top Model, has community activities, careers and relatively consistent personal stories.
Taanusiya Chetty of Malaysia won Beauty With a Purpose. The remaining representatives in the bottom group also overcame a series of challenges to be present in the deciding round.
Therefore, Bao Ngoc does not necessarily "lose" because of a clear weakness. She has many strengths but has not created a large enough gap in the core criteria for the judges to choose for the Top 3.
