A FORMER Miss Hampshire winner will represent Great Britain in one of the world’s biggest beauty pageants.

Grace Levy won the crown of Miss Universe Great Britain after wowing judges in the three-day competition in Cardiff.

She beat off stiff competition from 30 girls, all gunning for the prestigious title and now the Titchfieldborn 24-year-old is set to compete against girls from more than 80 countries across the globe.

Since winning Miss Hampshire in 2012, the psychology graduate, who now lives in London and works as an estate agent, has continued to enter beauty pageants and she won Miss Greater London in 2013.

But she decided that going in for Miss Universe Great Britain would be the last pageant she would enter.

Grace said: “It is absolutely unbelievable, and it still hasn’t sunk in. “When I was in the top five girls and got to the point where they would announce top position, I was thinking at least I made the top five.

“I never thought in a million years that I would actually win it. When it was announced I just burst into tears.”

Organiser of Miss Universe Great Britain, Paula Abbandonato said that Grace’s win was fully deserved.

She said: “Grace is an experienced competitor who has done beauty pageants for the last few years but never won a big one.

But she has kept going and does not take no for an answer.

“She has worked hard to get it. I am thrilled for her and can’t wait to send her off to represent Britain in Miss Universe.”

To enter Miss Universe Great Britain, Grace was chosen from a pool of hundreds of hopefuls who were interviewed by organisers.

Many of them applied after seeing Amy Willerton, who represented Great Britain last year in the competition, appear in popular ITV reality show I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.

Last year the title of Miss Universe was won by Gabriela Isler from Venezuela, who won the prestigious pageant in Russia. It is not yet known when and where this year’s competition will be held.

What does it mean to be Miss Universe?

MISS Universe is one of the most, if not the most, coveted title in the worldwide pageant scene.

No one from Britain has ever won Miss Universe in the 51 years it has been running.

Should Grace win, she will get a contract from the Miss Universe organisation to represent the company for a year.

This involves rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in politics, participating in official
charity and social events, appearing on television, and speaking on a variety of topics across the world.

As well as that, Miss Universe will also live the high life in a luxury apartment in New York, during her reign.