The curtain closed Wednesday night in Puoto Rico with the grand pageant Miss Universe 2002 ending.

The raven-haired Chinese beauty Ling Zhuo took home for the first time in China's history a third prize in the beauty contest.

Zhuo became the second runner-up after the newly crowned Miss Universe 2002 from Russia, Oxana Fedorova, and the first runner up from Panama, Justine Pasek.

The 19-year-old girl is a contracted model of the Shanghai Yifei Model Agency. She was the gold prize winner of the Chinese beauty pageant in March in Guangdong Province, and chosen as Miss China to enter for the world beauty pageant.

Zhuo said she had cold right before the contest, but she was glad at the result that she was the one to rewrite China's history.

Altoghether, candidates from 74 countries and regions took part in the beauty contest.

(eastday.com May 31, 2002)