Twen­ty-six years af­ter bring­ing glo­ry to T&T, for­mer beau­ty queen Giselle Laronde-West did it again when she se­cured a bronze medal at the 11th Shotokan Karate-Do In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion (SKIF) World Cham­pi­onship, in Syd­ney, Aus­tralia, on Wednes­day.

The 49-year-old Miss World win­ner placed third be­hind cham­pi­on Unit­ed States and run­ner-up Slove­nia in the vet­er­ans ka­ta cat­e­go­ry. Her team­mate Cindy Gue­vara al­so fin­ished third, in the vet­er­ans Ku­mite class. Par­tic­i­pants over the age of 40 com­pete in the vet­er­ans cat­e­go­ry.

Laronde-West's son Kristof West al­so made the trip, along with Sen­sei Neville Ma­son. When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Laronde-West's hus­band Heath­cliff West ex­pressed pride in yet an­oth­er land­mark achieve­ment con­jured up by the pageant win­ner.

"We're re­al­ly proud. We all know she's a very de­ter­mined per­son, and her fourth-place fin­ish two years ago re­al­ly spurred her on... So it re­al­ly showed. The kids were re­al­ly be­hind her," said West. In 2009, Laronde-West who holds a black belt, placed fourth in the same tour­na­ment, which was staged in Athens, Greece. Laronde-West, a Cha­co­nia Medal re­cip­i­ent, be­gan com­pet­ing in the dis­ci­pline while study­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don af­ter the 1986 Miss World pageant, which was staged in the same city.