No Blonde Jokes
December 14, 2008
It was a sad day for brunettes in Germany and beyond when the beauty pageant panels made their selections.
Kseniya Sukhinova, a 21-year-old Russian, beat out 109 competitors and stole the judges' hearts with her long blonde tresses. She was crowned on Saturday, Dec. 13, as Miss World 2008 in South Africa.
It was a chance for the country, set to host the soccer World Cup in 2010, to show off its organizational skills and recent facelift without the stress of hundreds of thousands of soccer fans. The Miss World pageant -- the oldest of its kind -- usually takes place in Kyiv.
Organizers of this year's Miss World competition estimated that more than 2 billion of the world's less beautiful watched the competition from over 180 countries.
Not quite as many were around to view Dirk Schlemmer's moment of glory. The 24-year-old law student was named Mister Germany in the tiny north-eastern town of Linstow on Saturday.
The 1.89-meter (6-foot, 3-inch) tall, blonde, blue-eyed Mister Baden-Wuerttemberg beat out 17 competitors to be pronounced Germany's best looking man.
He may have to take a break from his favorite hobbies -- snowboarding and soccer -- to prevent any damage to his flawless and now valuable body during his one year on the throne.