Miss Universe crowned at glitzy ceremony in Eilat

Miss India Harnaaz Sandhu was crowned the new Miss Universe in a glitzy ceremony in the Red Sea port of Eilat in the early hours of Monday morning, marking the 70th anniversary of the beauty competition.

Sandhu advanced to the finals out of 80 contestants from all corners of the world, just edging out Miss Paraguay Nadia Ferreira and Miss South Africa Lalela Mswane to take over the crown from the reigning Miss Universe, Miss Mexico Andrea Meza.

But while Sandhu took the top prize in the three-hour live competition, which wrapped up at 5 a.m. local time so it could air live in primetime in North, Central and South America, there was another beauty prominently on display to an audience of hundreds of millions of people — Israel.

“Tonight we are in the beautiful country of Israel,” said host Steve Harvey as he opened the telecast. “This is a country with so much rich culture and history.”

Israeli artists also took top billing at the glitzy event with the evening opening with a performance by Israeli pop singer Noa Kirel, who performed her English-language single “Bad Little Thing.”

Well-known pop singer Harel Skaat — whose husband is Deputy Foreign Minister Idan Roll — also performed at the show, singing a Hebrew, Arabic and English-language cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” with Valerie Hamaty, a Christian Arab Israeli singer who became famous on this year’s season of Israel’s “Rising Star,” and religious Jewish Israeli performer Narkis.

With the Omicron COVID variant shutting down air travel and limiting entry into Israel, the local audience was thin, with the 4,000-seat hall more than half empty by the end of the show. Sandhu told reporters following her win that her family was unable to be with her at the competition due to the restrictions.

And a considerable portion of the audience was made up of fans from the Philippines — who make up a large percentage of foreign workers in Israel — who cheered raucously as Miss Philippines Beatrice Luigi Gomez advanced to the top 16, the top 10 and then the top 3.

Israel’s Tourism Ministry views the contest — broadcast to hundreds of millions of viewers in 172 countries — as a major win for tourism, PR and Israel’s image around the world.

In addition to the TV viewership, each of the 80 contestants is “posting on social media and posting stories to their social networks,” said Sara Salansky, the director of overseas marketing for the Tourism Ministry. Part of the ministry’s backing of the event, she said, was tied to the request “that we want all the candidates to travel in Israel and to be shooting photos of them traveling and meeting the people and the sites of Israel.”

And images and video of their travels were incorporated into the live broadcast, showing the women visiting the Western Wall, speaking about their time in Israel and touring around the country.