Leah So­rias

On­line rat­ings for Miss T&T Uni­verse La Toya Woods have sky­rock­et­ed.

Mis­sosol­o­gy.org, a pop­u­lar on­line beau­ty pageant mag­a­zine, has cho­sen Woods as its "num­ber one hot pick" this week while she has been vot­ed in­to sixth place on the of­fi­cial Miss Uni­verse Web site.

Ac­cord­ing to Mis­sosol­o­gy.org, beau­ty ex­perts chose Woods fol­low­ing the swim­suit and evening gown pho­to­shoots. She was placed ahead of Miss Rus­sia and Miss Mex­i­co, who came in sec­ond and third place re­spec­tive­ly.

The mag­a­zine is based in the Philip­pines and has been cov­er­ing in­ter­na­tion­al beau­ty pageants for the past 10 years. On Wednes­day, Woods was at ninth place on the Miss Uni­verse Web site but yes­ter­day her rat­ings in­creased and she's now in sixth po­si­tion. On her heals is Miss Mex­i­co, Ji­me­na Navar­rete. Among the 83 can­di­dates Woods now has a rat­ing of 2.73. Miss Philip­pines, Venus Raj, leads the poll with 3.74.

The 24-year-old Cou­va beau­ty queen was crit­i­cised for her de­ci­sion to go "top­less" in an of­fi­cial pho­to­shoot for the pageant, in Las Ve­gas, on Mon­day. T&T Uni­verse fran­chise hold­er, Ian Lee, has since stood by Woods' de­ci­sion, say­ing it had cat­a­pult­ed her chances of plac­ing in the top five of the com­pe­ti­tion. Woods faces a tough chal­lenge of bring­ing home the crown for T&T af­ter a 12-year win­ning drought. The last per­son to win the crown for T&T was Wendy Fitzwilliam in 1998. Miss Uni­verse 2010 will be held on Au­gust 23. Sup­port­ers can vote for Woods on the of­fi­cial Miss Uni­verse web­site: www.mis­suni­verse.com