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Miss Canada Natalie Glebova was crowned Miss Universe 2005 in Bangkok on Tuesday at the climax of a beauty pageant that once again managed to stumble into controversy.
Glebova, a 23-year-old motivational speaker from Toronto, succeeded last year's winner, Australian Jennifer Hawkins, after the usual evening gown and swimsuit parades that pull in TV viewers worldwide but outrage feminists and traditionalists .
Even though hotly tipped for the title, the final announcement appeared to stun Glebova, who moved to Canada from her native Russia only 11 years ago.
"This is all happening too fast and it's unreal. It's slowly starting to sink in," she told reporters moments after being crowned with the glittering, diamond-encrusted Miss Universe tiara.
Dressed in a long white evening dress, she hugged her parents on stage and then praised her new homeland for giving her and her family the chance to start a new life.
"When we came 11 years ago, we came with nothing, and now we've got so much," she said.
In all, 81 beauties from Albania to Zambia made it to Thailand, riding elephants, touring temples and rollicking on tsunami-hit beaches in the run-up to Tuesday's finale.
In the middle of the show, the conference hall fell silent for a minute in memory of the more than 228,000 dead or missing from the Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami. Nearly 5,400 of the victims were in Thailand.
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