Miss Puerto Rico, Thebyam Carrion Alvarez (left), Miss Jamaica, Sara Lawrence (centre), and Miss Barbados, Latoya Tamara McDowald, during a Miss Beach competition in Sopot, northern Poland, on September 7, during the Miss World 2006 competition. - Contributed

Jamaica is ranked 28th in the world Grand Slam rating of beauty pageants. There are 99 countries on the list.

The Grand Slam ranking system, launched by globalbeauties.com in 2003, measures the performance of each country which participates in the five most acclaimed beauty pageants in the world over the past 10 years.

This means that the system considers the Miss World, Miss Universe, Miss International, Miss Earth and, most recently, the Miss Tourism Queen International pageants. Jamaica only participates in the Miss World and the Miss Universe pageants.

At number 28, Jamaica falls below other Caribbean countries Trinidad and Tobago, 13, and Dominican Republic, 11. Puerto Rico is the highest ranked Caribbean country at number six.

However, unlike Jamaica, Puerto Rico participates in all five pageants, as does Dominican Republic. Trinidad and Tobago participates in three of the five pageants.

Awarding points

Points are awarded to countries based on their performance in each pageant. Twenty points are awarded for winning, 19 for second, 18 points for third, down to the 20th-placed contestant getting one point.

Once a new pageant is held, results from exactly 10 years ago are erased and the new ones are added. All points earned by countries up to Miss World 2005 were discarded as soon as a Miss World 2005 was crowned, so Jamaica's previous wins were not counted as part of the current ranking. When the 2006 Miss World is crowned, the ranking will change again.

Venezuela is currently ranked number one in the world, India second and the United States third. Colombia and South Africa round out the top five.