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16.12.2014 Beauty & Fashion

Rolene Strauss Wins 2014 Miss World Pageant

By E-online
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16.12.2014 LISTEN

5 Things to Know About Miss South Africa

Rolene Strauss Wins 2014 Miss World Pageant-Congrats to the winner of the 2014 Miss World pageant,  Miss South Africa ,  Rolene Strauss !

The 22-year-old beauty queen and med student was   crowned onstage   at the competition's grand final in London on Sunday. Miss Hungary,  Edina Kulcsár , came in second, while Miss United States,  Elizabeth Safrit , placed third.

Check out five things to know about Strauss below.
1. She's a “test tube baby”
This is what she jokingly calls herself. Strauss says on her website that her parents had struggled to conceive for five years.

“After five long years (and most of their savings), I popped out of a test tube,” she wrote. “A year after my birth my brother was, like my mom says, “sent from heaven.”

In vitro fertilization fertility treatments have been on the rise in recent years. In April, the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology (SART) released a report that states that in 2012, the largest ever number of such procedures, more than 165,000, were performed on women in the United States, resulting in the birth of more than 61,000 babies, which constituted more than 1.5% of all births.

2. She's a model and med student…and was basically born for it

Strauss, the daughter of a doctor and nurse, has been modeling professionally for the past several years and is currently a fourth-year medical student at the   University of the Free State in Bloemfontein. She had put her studies on hold to compete in Miss World. At the pageant, she said in a pre-taped interview screened onstage that becoming Miss South Africa and Miss World and studying medicine were her childhood dreams.

“Everyone in my town called me Little Dr. Strauss,” she said. “Because I was always the little curly-headed girl running around behind my dad in the hospital.”

“I'm a test tube baby and I believe my passion for health was born with me,” Strauss had said in another official video. “Being a fourth-year medical student, I've learned that giving has a ripple effect.”

LEON NEAL/AFP/Getty Images
3. She's bilingual
Like many people in South Africa, Strauss speaks fluent English and Afrikaans. Check out this bilingual interview she gave to   Jacaranda FM   earlier this year.

4. She's a heartbreaker
But you probably already guessed that.
In an interview with the South African TV Authority (TVSA) earlier this year, she was asked how many boyfriends she'd ever “dumped.”

“I would say three,” the then-21-year-old said at the time.

She was also asked if she has a boyfriend and if she was single.

“I definitely don't have a public relationship,” she said. “You know, as a Miss South Africa people look up to you and see you as an independent, strong woman. That's the picture I'd like to show people out there and I think it's difficult to be in a relationship because of your busy schedule.”

5. If you take her out on a day, maybe you should avoid the vegan restaurants

“My mother's oxtail with stampmielies [a corn dish] is my favorite home-cooked meal,” Strauss told   Oprah Magazine South Africa . “We have an old coal stove we use in the winter, and no oxtail can taste better than my mom's, made on that stove.”

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