The announcement was made yesterday (23rd Nov.) during a press conference hosted by the committee to update the media - and by extension the public - on the progression of preparations for the event which is slated to be held in 30th December 2010. 

During the 2009/2010 pageant, the St. Kitts representative Berriscia Byron and the St. Lucia representative Consuela Dupal amassed an equal number of points and since then, have been sharing the coveted crown.

MiyVue understands that this did not sit well with the audience and strong suggestions were made to the committee for the inclusion of a tie-breaker policy as part of the event’s rules and regulations.

The police, which will take effect as of this year, reads:

Final Placing Positions

1. There shall be no ties for any position, including the winning Queen position or any other segment;
2. If there is a tie for any final position, then the scored performance of the tied contestants in the most important part of the show (the section with the highest points) will be considered and applied. If there is a clear winner in that segment for the contestants involved, then that contestant will be deemed the winner.
3. If there is a tie in points for that section, then the contestant with the majority of the judges scoring in her favour will be deemed the winner.
4. If there is still a tie among the judges, then the scores of remaining judges in that segment will be considered, and applied.
5. If there is still a tie, then the next most important segment in terms of points will be considered, and applied, and the same procedure as above (2-4) will be followed through to the least important segment of the show until a winner is determined.
6. If all of the above fails to separate the tied contestants, then the available judges will be asked to select a winner with the head judge having a casting vote in the event of a deadlock among the judges.

The newly-introduced policy also spells out tie-breaking criteria, which are to be used should ties occur in either of the five segments.

1. If there is a tie for the winner of a segment, then the contestant that has the most first positions in that segment on the judge’s score sheets will be deemed the winner.
2. If there is still a tie then the contestant with the most second places on the score sheets in that segment will be deemed the winner.
3. If there is still a tie, the next position (third) through to the last position will be considered until a winner is determined.
4. If all of the above fails to separate the tied contestants, then the available judges for that segment will be asked to select the winner, with the head judge having a casting vote in the event of a deadlock among the judges.

Akilah Nisbett, Contestant and Activities Coordinator, explained that in the 30-year- existence of the show, the organising committee never imagined that there would have been a tie. She further explained that since that has taken place, the committee understands that it can happen again and to prevent recurrence, the tie-breaker policy is necessary. 

“(It is) to ensure that we never have a situation like that again. What you have to bear in mind is that the pageant had been running for 30 years and has never run into anything like that before. So not in our wildest dream did we think we would ever have a tie….(because) there is a possibility that in the next 30 years it could probably happen again, we decided to put in a policy just for tie-breaking.”

News item complements www.miyvue.com