Mister World and Mister International winners

Andrew Wolff made us proud by his 1st runner-up finish at the recently-held Mister World 2013 pageant that was held in Kent, England on November 24, 2012 (early morning of Nov. 25 here in Manila).

Andrew, a model and a member of the Philippine Volcanoes rugby team, was chosen by a panel headed by Cory Quirino to represent the country in the international pageant. Reason why they didn’t hold a national pageant was that Quirino’s Global Quest, Inc. (franchise holder of the local Miss World) was only told to send a candidate a few weeks before they actually had to fly one to England.

I’m a fan of Wolff and he was indeed a good choice. Mister World has a lot of pre-pageant challenges that gives points to the contestants and enables them to fast track to the semi finals. Challenges include sports, extreme sports, multi-media, talent, and fashion and style.

Wolff excelled in the sports challenges but was beaten by Ireland’s Leo Delaney in winning Mister World Sports. He, however, fast tracked to the semis by being declared as winner of the Mister World Multi-Media award. It was based on how well they did with their official Mister World Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Other candidates who won fast track competitions were Canada’s Frankie Cena as Mister World Talent, Croatia’s Vanja Grgec as Mister World Extreme Sports, and Vietnam’s Nam Truong as Mister World Fashion & Style.

The other half of the Top 10 were judges’ picks – Peru’s Rodrigo Chu, Belgium’s Gianni Sennesael, Colombia’s Francisco Parra, England’s Roland Johnson, and Lebanon’s Rodolphe Nader.

The Top 10 were interviewed and after that, they were narrowed down to Top 3 – Ireland, Colombia and Philippines.

Ireland was called as 3rd place and I thought Andrew would be declared the winner. Wrong, though, because the judges favored the younger, leaner Francisco Parra to take home the title.

Andrew Wolff did a great job, though, and it was the farthest we’ve come to winning the title so far.

However, I wonder who else Cory Quirino considered for the pageant. Is it better to just have a panel decide on who to send to the international pageant from among a list of celebs/athletes? Or will it still be best to hold a national pageant?

Well, anyway, another male pageant, Mister International 2012, was held on the same date in Thailand. The time zones are different, though, so this one was held a few hours earlier.

Lebanon’s Ali Hammoud was declared Mister International 2012. Singapore’s Ron Teh was 1st runner-up, Slovenia’s Marko Sobot was 2nd runner-up, Brazil’s Ricardo Magryino wsa 3rd runner-up and Slovak Republic’s Jan Haraslin was 4th runner-up.

Out of 40 candidates, our representative Mark John Gutoman failed to make it even just to the Top 16. Perhaps because he looks like a school boy in the midst of hunky men.

Gutoman was the winner of the national pageant Mister Philippines 2012.