Wasting a stunning candidate is perhaps as old as beauty pageant itself. The story of Miss Spain Dana Tomuta at Miss Supranational 2021 is one of those familiar stories we hear every year. Dana was a topnotch contestant and a drop-dead gorgeous blonde who speaks multiple languages but was denied of her rightful place among the semifinalists.
Dana turned heads wherever she went. Missosology placed her in the 10th position of the final Hot Picks. However, among the first ten listed, she was the only one that missed the semifinals. It was rather odd and to some extent – bizarre. If Miss Supranational draws inspiration from Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, then Dana Tomuta – who could be a perfect VS Angel – should have been the frontrunner.
The list of stunning contestants that were just wasted at Big5 pageants is indeed long. Most of the time, people just move on. Sometimes, big changes do happen. When Oleksandra Nikolayenko and Gal Gadot failed to make it to the semis of Miss Universe 2004, the Miss Universe Organization decided to be more hands on. By 2005, their long standing tradition solely relying to their appointed judges in selecting the semifinalists was gone forever.
Perhaps we will be comforted by the fact that when one door closes another one opens. Oleksandra Nikoyalenko went on to become a celebrity in Ukraine and later handled the Miss Universe Ukraine pageant. As for Gal Gadot, well, everyone should know by now that she’s a Hollywood superstar. Perhaps, Dana Tomuta will have a similar fate. For such a stunning woman she has a very bright future. But her failure to make it to the Top 24 of Miss Supranational 2021 still haunts many pageant analysts.
As is often the case, what we saw in Dana may have eluded the judges and what the judges saw in her will always be a mystery to us all. There are thousands of aspiring beauty queens each year and – in a normal year sans pandemic – there will be just five winners of major international pageants. Statistics tells us there will always be a candidate that will be unnecessarily wasted. It’s just sad that at Miss Supranational 2021, it had to be Dana Tomuta.
