Six­ty young women showed up yes­ter­day for a chance to be­come the next Miss World Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The en­thu­si­asm from the hope­fuls came on the heels of Ache Abra­hams’ suc­cess at the 71st Miss World pageant in March, where she placed in the top four and al­so claimed the ti­tle of Miss Caribbean.

The screen­ing took place at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel where the young women were in­ter­viewed by ten judges, in­clud­ing Miss World 1986 Giselle Laronde-West; styl­ist and cre­ative di­rec­tor Richard Young; and fran­chise hold­er and na­tion­al di­rec­tor of Miss World T&T Charu Lochan Dass.

Re­nes­sa Or­tiz, who’d al­ready copped the ti­tle of Miss To­ba­go and is a fi­nal­ist for the Miss World T&T 2024 pageant, was put on the spot by judges when she was asked to sing. Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side the judg­ing room, Or­tiz said that al­though the ex­pe­ri­ence was nerve-rack­ing over­all it was a nice ex­pe­ri­ence.

It was a bit nerve-rack­ing be­ing asked to sing for them on the spot; it was a bit nerve-rack­ing, I had to cen­tre my­self, and gath­er my thoughts. It was a nice con­ver­sa­tion, I did not feel any pres­sure, it was al­most nat­ur­al. It was amaz­ing, a nice ex­pe­ri­ence,” Or­tiz said.

Be­fore en­ter­ing the judg­ing hall, an­oth­er con­tes­tant, 23-year-old Jor­dan Steele from Gulf View, San Fer­nan­do said she bare­ly slept the night be­fore be­cause she was very ex­cit­ed.

“I’m very pas­sion­ate about ad­vo­cat­ing for and pro­mot­ing aware­ness, ac­cep­tance, and in­clu­sion in Trinidad and To­ba­go, par­tic­u­lar­ly, the spe­cial needs com­mu­ni­ty of (the coun­try)...Miss World is such a great plat­form where I think you are ex­posed to so many in­flu­en­tial per­sons, and I think you can tru­ly make a dif­fer­ence,” Steele said.

Thanks to Abra­hams’ daz­zling and trail­blaz­ing per­for­mance that stunned the coun­try, and world, Lochan Dass ad­mit­ted that the bar was un­de­ni­ably raised, not on­ly for the com­peti­tors, but the se­lec­tion process. Abra­hams was screened in 2022.

“I can sure­ly say we’re go­ing to end up with a great co­hort,” Lochan Dass said, adding, “I feel pres­sure be­cause we have a stan­dard to main­tain...be­cause we are con­tin­u­ous­ly work­ing to­wards bring­ing home the crown and putting Trinidad and To­ba­go on the map again as far as pageantry is con­cerned.”

Shar­ing with Guardian Me­dia what char­ac­ter­is­tics she’d found among the four can­di­dates she’d eval­u­at­ed thus far with the oth­er judges for the morn­ing, Laronde-West high­light­ed their con­fi­dence and ar­tic­u­la­tion.

“We have young ladies who are very con­fi­dent. They know what they want. They are al­so ar­tic­u­late as well...One of them had us cry­ing al­ready. You see the ret­i­cence, you see the reser­va­tion ini­tial­ly, and then when you get them talk­ing, it’s like, Wow, a whole new hu­man be­ing. And so that re­minds me of my­self,” Laronde-West said.

She be­lieves every woman has what it takes to ex­cel on the world stage. Young said he was im­pressed by the dis­tinct styles of the women he’d eval­u­at­ed thus far.

“We want a Trin­bag­on­ian women who is aware of her so­cial en­vi­ron­ment and cul­tur­al mi­lieu, so in her con­fi­dent por­tray­al it must ac­knowl­edge what makes us dif­fer­ent, the unique­ness of our peo­ple. Con­fi­dence is the first most im­por­tant thing,” Young said, adding, “The con­ver­sa­tion­al styles of the young ladies, it de­fin­i­tive­ly jumped the mark. The dis­cus­sions went from a neu­ro­physi­cist, to a de­sign­er who wants to change the world, to a psy­chol­o­gist who wants to work on chil­dren and make them feel bet­ter…”

The Miss World T&T will re­ceive a cash prize of $100,000 in ad­di­tion to ex­ec­u­tive train­ing in­clud­ing mod­el­ling, fit­ness, and eti­quette; a front­line Bliss Car­ni­val cos­tume; den­tal care, and a full wardrobe from se­lect­ed de­sign­ers.