LONDON: Turkey's alluring young Miss Azra Akin was crowned as Miss World 2002 at a global contest held at Alexandria Palace in London Sunday.

With a gleaming smile and a graceful bow, Miss Turkey won the coveted title of Miss World on Saturday, bringing to a close an international pageant that has been dogged by violence and controversy.

Azra Akin stood proudly to attention while her national anthem was played, after she accepted the glittering tiara and a 100,000 pound (US$156,000) prize from last year's winner, Nigeria's Agbani Darego.

Ninety-two contestants from around the world took part in the show, which was hastily shunted to London after rioting last month forced it out of Nigeria.

The pageant's motto is "beauty with a purpose", and among this year's contestants were lawyers, businesswomen, architects and a doctor.

Unlike its heyday in the 1970s, this year's beauty queens glided along the catwalk in evening gowns rather than swim wear -- part of an effort to shed the show's sexist and outdated image.

But swim wear was not entirely absent Saturday. As the girls strutted across the elaborate stage, footage of them shot beside a Nigerian waterfall was flashed across giant screens.

Despite its 11th hour relocation, the 52nd pageant was a slick and glitzy affair, watched by a sell-out audience of several hundred at Alexandra Palace Convention Center in north London.

Organisers say the show was broadcast in 137 countries to a global audience of more than two billion.

In Britain, however, where the pageant is widely seen as a quaint, kitsch spectacle, no television channel agreed to broadcast it.

The rioting that left more than 200 people dead in Nigeria was barely mentioned during the upbeat show Saturday.

"Our thoughts go out to the families that suffered," said Sean Kanan, an actor from US soap The Bold and The Beautiful who co-hosted the event.

Miss World is used to controversy. Feminists flour-bombed the 1970 event, hosted by Bob Hope at the Royal Albert Hall in London. In 1996, when the finals were held in the Indian city of Bangalore, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at rock-throwing protesters, and one man committed suicide by self-immolation.
 

But this year's glamorous extravaganza has been beset by problems from the outset.

First, a number of girls boycotted the competition after Lawal was condemned to death for having a child outside marriage. The Nigerian government promised the sentence would not be carried out, and organiser Julia Morley pressed ahead.

Critics insisted the show must be abandoned. "These girls will be wearing swim wear dripping with blood," British writer Muriel Gray said.

Morley, whose late husband Eric launched Miss World in 1951, has remained adamant that the pageant was not responsible for the rioting, however.

"We had nothing to do with the violence, so it is quite ludicrous to suggest we are being insensitive by continuing with the competition," she said.

On Thursday the contest faced a new crisis, with a High Court judge ordering that Morley's assets be frozen.

Nigerian art dealer and promoter Angela Onyeador launched the legal action, claiming she is owed nearly 500,000 pounds (US$780,000) after agreeing to act as guarantor for the Miss World gala dinner at a London hotel last month.

The case is due to return to the High Court in London next week.

The ten finalists Saturday were: Miss Australia, Nicole Gazal; Miss China, Yingna Wu; Miss Colombia, Natalia Peralta; Miss Nigeria, Chinenye Ochuba; Miss Norway, Kathrine Sorland; Miss Peru, Marina Mora Montero; Miss Philippines, Katherine Manalo; Miss Turkey, Azra Akin; Miss United States, Rebekah Revels; and Miss Venezuela, Goizeder Azua Barrios.