Miss Universe Canada crowns wrong contestant

For a fleeting moment, all of Denise Garrido’s dreams were coming true. Then a “typo” knocked her off the 2013 Miss Universe Canada podium and called the organization’s integrity into question. Just 24 hours after being crowned, Garrido met Sunday with pageant director Denis Davila, who stripped her of her sash, crown, trophy and chance to represent Canada at Miss Universe in the United States this December. “My heart sank,” Garrido, 26, told the Star. “I was so sad.” Davila informed her that a “typo” occurred when transferring the judges’ handwritten scores into a computer program that determines the winner. Garrido had not finished first; she had finished fourth, the third runner-up to Riza Santos, 26, of Calgary, who will soon collect her crown in Toronto.“It’s been the ultimate dream of mine,” said Garrido, who won the 2008 Miss Earth Canada and 2010 Miss World Canada pageants. “All of the other pageants were building toward this one.” Garrido, of Bradford, Ont., holds no bad feelings toward Davila or the organization. But others say the embarrassing mix-up, a first for the organization in 11 years, could have been prevented. After judges score the contestants, someone inputs the results into a computer. Andrew Lopez, a spokesman for Miss Universe Canada, said that for 10 years, the person inputting the results had been lawyer Nick Macos of Black Sutherland LLP. But Macos, who is independent of Miss Universe Canada, was not available this year, Lopez said. It was left to an inexperienced pageant employee to transfer the scores; it was he who made the error. Davila could not be reached for comment on why another person not connected to Miss Universe Canada was not found to calculate the scores. “In retrospect, I’m sure he wishes he would have done that,” said Lopez. A third-party audit, required to compare the handwritten scores with the computer results, spotted the error Sunday. Lopez could not confirm who carried out the audit, but said the person inputting the scores the night of the pageant is not required to be independent. Former employee Fabricio Loza-Alvarado said it should be a requirement, and noted he raised such concerns after seeing staffers do it rather than Nick Macos in previous pageants. “Every single person who does the calculation needs to be third party,” said Loza-Alvarado, a former production director and producer. “If not, it puts you in a very compromising situation.” Loza-Alvarado believes that his questioning of the organization’s integrity played a role in his firing after 12 years with Miss Universe Canada. Lopez declined to comment on Loza-Alvarado’s dismissal. Marwa Ishow, a contestant in the 2013 pageant, which was held at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts in Toronto, said Garrido deserved to win and the “typo” fiasco has left her and other competitors uneasy. “How we do we know that everything else wasn’t wrong?” said Ishow, 22. “The whole pageant seems like it was staged.” To make up for Garrido’s crushing disappointment, Miss Universe Canada has plans for her to join Santos on some of her titleholder duties and has tapped her to be a judge for the 2014 competition. “I will always have the memory of being the 24-hour queen,” said Garrido, who is now too old to compete in the competition again. This is the second year in a row that controversy has gripped the pageant. In 2012, transgender model Jenna Talackova waged a battle to enter the competition.
 News source: www.thestar.com

Posted in: Alex Consiglio