Miss VENEZUELA: Dayana Mendoza

Age: 22

Height: 5′10″

Hair Color: Brown

Eye Color: Green

This event marks one of the most interesting years of live international television events, as star studded jury chose Miss Venezuela, Dayana Mendoza as Miss Universe 2008 in Nha Trang, Khanh Hoa, Vietnam.

The 57th Annual Miss Universe competition was hosted by Jerry Springer and Mel B.

Panel of Judges Miss Universe 2008:

Donald Trump Jr., - executive vice president of Trump Organization
Roberto Cavalli - fashion designer and businessman
Jennifer Hawkins - Miss Universe 2004 and a leading TV presenter
Nadine Velazquez - international cover girl
Louis Licari - “Today Show” ambush makeover expert
Joe Cinque - American Academy of Hospitality Sciences President
Eesha Koppikhar - Bollywood film and TV star, dancer and model
Nguyen Cong Khe - Editor in Chief of Thanh Nien newspaper
Taryn Rose - international shoe designer

For two hours event, contestants from 80 countries and territories worldwide competed in three categories: swimsuit, evening gown and personality interviews. Miss Universe 2007 Riyo Mori crowned her successor with an estimated worldwide audience of more than 1 billion spectators.

Get to know the crowed Miss Universe 2008 in an interview featured at MissUniverse.com:

What are your interests and what do you enjoy doing the most?
Interior design, photography, advertising, and I enjoy meeting people from every country and learning languages.

What is your career ambition?
Interior Design and also advertising but as Oscar Wilde used to say, “To define oneself is to limit oneself”.

What is your proudest personal accomplishment?
Being independent from the age of fifteen on, living in different countries by myself without knowing the language at the beginning and without the presence of my parents. Having succeeded in working in different cultures and learning the most from them.

What is something unique that has happened to you; some interesting thing about you?
I was once kidnapped, in what in my country is known as an express kidnapping. It was a very hard experience. I learned to remain calm in a very stressful situation and to try to reach to the human part of our abductors.

What do you want the judges to know about you?
I am grateful to life for my family and for the opportunities to grow in different places and learn the most from them. Even in the hardest of times what my family and life has taught me has helped me push through and succeed.