This is the first time that I had ever watched the Miss World pageant. With that said, I am not familiar with the preliminary contests and the scoring given to each one. I am however, mathematically inclined and was a tad confused by the final 15. There are certain things that one must assume before trying to do the simple arithmetic required to come up with the final scores. The purpose is to verify the scores.
The main assumptions of the Scoring Mechanism:
1 - All Miss World 2012 candidates start with zero points before the preliminary.
2 - There were seven preliminary events reported during the MW 2012 pageant. These were shown live during the MW 2012 ceremony in the following order:
a. Interview - IN - (score-board shown after winner announced during live event).
b. Top Model - TM -(score-board shown after winner announced during live event).
c. Beach Fashion - BF -(no score-board shown after winner announced during live event).
d. Special Media - SM -(score-board shown after winner announced during live event).
e. Sport - SP - (score-board shown after winner announced during live event).
f. Talent - TA - (score-board shown after winner announced during live event).
g. Beauty with a Purpose - BwP - (score-board not shown after winner announced during live event).
3 - Each preliminary event gives a given number of points to the candidate depending on their overall position in that portion of the preliminary competition.
4 - The direct sum of the individual scores from each preliminary competition yields a final score.
5 - The 15 highest scores from the preliminary round make up the top 15 candidates that move on in the competition.
6 - The Top 15 were: Mexico, Brazil, USA, Wales, England, Spain, Netherlands, India, China, Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, South Sudan, Kenya and Jamaica.
I will be displaying video snapshots of a full recording of the Miss World (herein: MW) 2012 pageant held in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China this 18th of August. Each snapshot from the video will have the time-stamp displayed so it will be easy to find . The full recording, taken from Venezuela's Venevision channel, which was used for this analysis is available here (the video is dubbed in Spanish):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSvY5ufY3gw
The video lasts exactly 1:43:05. Note that the only alteration I made to the each snap-shot is the green text in the bottom, used to identify to which preliminary competition the reported scores correspond to.
Method to verify scores:
- To verify the math, I will chose a girl at random from the initial Top 30 of interview and will be following her score. This candidate is Miss Poland.
- I will keep track of the inclusion of the Top 15 as they appear on the Top 30.
Scoring:
The initial score shown during the live broadcast was Interview:
The apparent maximum score here is 200 points, with the winner being South Sudan with 167 points, and rounding the 30 is Botswana at 155.
Observations:
1 - Candidates from position 31 and below have scores below 155 points.
2 - Of the top 15, Miss USA, Kenya, Indonesia and Philippines are not yet reported in the top 30.
3 - Miss Poland has 157 points.
The next score shown was for Top Model:
South Sudan wins again. As her previous interview score was 167, and now it's 217, the maximum points awarded are 50 for Top Model. The 30th position is now Bulgaria at 169 points.
Observations:
1 - Candidates from position 31 and below have scores below 169 points
2 - Of the top 15, Miss USA and Philippines are not yet reported in the top 30.
3 - Kenya is now part of the Top 30 with 174 points. As the Interview low was 155, the lowest she could have made was 174 - 154 = 20 points in Top Model.
4 - Indonesia is now part of the Top 30 with 175 points. As the Interview low was 155, the lowest she could have made was 175-154 = 21 points in Top Model.
3 - Mexico is now at 198 points, meaning that she earned 35 (198-163) points in Top Model.
4 - Spain is now at 198 points, meaning that she earned 32 (198-166) points in Top Model.
5 - Poland is now at 197, meaning that she earned 40 points (197-157) points in Top Model.
The next event shown during the broadcast was Beach Fashion. The winner was Wales, but no score-board was shown directly after the winner was announced as with the other preliminary events.
The next event was Special Media, won by Miss India. A score-board was now shown:
The leader after 4 preliminary events was now Mexico with 258 points. The 30th position is Czech Republic at 199 points.
Observations:
1 - Candidates from position 31 and below have scores below 198 points.
2 - Mexico earned 60 points from Beach Fashion and Special Media (258 - 198). As she was not the winner of any of those events, it is safe to assume that both were scored events.
3 - Of the Top 15, Miss USA is not yet reported in the Top 30.
4 - Miss Philippines is now part of the Top 30 with 204 points. As the combined Interview and Top Model low score for Top 30 was 169, the minimum she made for BF and SP was (204-168) 36 points.
5 - Poland after BF and SM is reported at 227. This means she earned 30 points combined.
The next event shown was Sport.
The leader at this stage is still Mexico with 283 points. The 30th position is Scotland at 214 points.
Observations:
1 - Candidates from position 31 and below have scores below 204 points.
2 - Of the Top 15, Miss USA is not yet reported in the Top 30.
3 - Poland sits at 237 points, indicating that she was awarded 10 for SP.
The next event shown was Talent.
Interestingly, this is the same score-board with the same scores shown from the SPORTS competition. However, in the video, if you can hear the score-host (English), he states to the effect:
- China takes the lead.
- Mexico is second.
- Jamaica is third, from 10th position previously to 3rd.
- Indonesia at 28th at 225 points.
The only observations regarding the score-board are what the score-host stated. We would expect that Miss China, if this event gives 50 points, is now at a total of 294 points (244+50).
The final event shown was Beauty with a Purpose. No score-board was shown.
There was a later snapshot showing the actual score-board with scores after Talent during the Beauty with a Purpose portion (it is blurry and I zoomed in):
Observations from the Score-board pre announcement of the BwP winner:
1 - The 30th position must be 224 points. Meaning that 31st and below have 223 points and below at this stage of the competition.
2 - Of the Top 15, from the images it is unclear if Miss USA is now included in the Top 30 either by country name (United States of America) or by flag.
3 - Poland seems to be in the second column of the zoomed image at the third row. Assuming she earned no points, she would still be standing at 237 points.
4 - It is not a given whether or not scores were awarded for BwP and if so, what those were.
The final announcement was of the TOP 15:
The scores reflected seem to be those from pre-Beauty with a purpose. That is, assuming no score was given to BwP. If scores were given, then those were not displayed.
Observations:
1 - The minimum score reported in the Top 15 is Miss USA at 152.
2 - Miss USA came in 3rd place in BwP.
3 - Assume Poland earned no points, and is still at 237 (at Sport stage).
Comparing the scores from the TOP 15 image and the last clear score report (SPORT)
General Conclusions:
1 - All candidates did start from zero points at the beginning of the competition.
2 - With the exception of Beauty with a Purpose, for which it isn't clear if points were awarded, all other preliminary competitions did grant overall points.
3 - If points were awarded to BwP, then India only won 10, as her final score shown in TOP 15 was 271 from 261from the last clear score-board (SPORT).
4 - TOP 15 scores only include, IN, TM, BF, SM, SP and TA.
----------- If in effect the scores shown in the TOP 15 do not include BwP scores, then how did USA with 152 manage to get in.
----------- If in effect the scores shown in the TOP 15 do not include BwP scores, then how did Kenya with 214 points get over Poland at a minimum of 237?
----------- If in effect the scores shown in the TOP 15 do not include BwP scores, then how did Indonesia with 225 get over Poland with a minimum of 225?
5 - If the order shown in the TOP 15 is the correct order, but the scores are from the previous events not including Beauty with a Purpose scores, then:
---------- Miss USA as a 3rd place finisher for BwP must have earned more than 85 points to overcome the mimimum score of Miss Poland at 237 since the last clear score-board (SP) was shown (237-152).
---------- Miss Kenya as a 5th place finisher for BwP must have earned more than 23 points to overcome the minimum score of Miss Poland at 237 since the last clear score-board (SP) was shown (237-214)
---------- In effect, Kenya had to have earned more than 36 points to overcome the minimum score of Sweden, a top 5 score come SP (250-214).
It is unclear to me how the scores were assigned after the SPORT (SP) results. Miss USA to make up the 85 point minimum differential with Miss Sweden must have been a top contender in both Talent and Beauty with a Purpose (if this is scored). But it appears that BwP was not scored.
Pending Questions:
1 - Miss USA? If her SPORT score was at 152 how did she get 85+ points to in TA and BwP to best Poland?
2 - Miss Kenya? How did her TOP 15 score of 214, which is the same as that reported after SPORT, beat Poland?
3 - Were scores assigned to BwP? If so, then India should be way ahead. That, is unless the 10 point differential is for the Talent portion. Assuming BwP real points were not shown in the TOP 15 announcement.
Feel free to do the same exercise with other candidates like Sweden, Guadeloupe, Kazakhstan, Hong Kong, Colombia, Northern Ireland.
As a personal note, I am from the US.
Note: Edited 8/19/2012 - Changed Top 15 data chart for an Excel printout for better reading/clarity.
