Miss Grand El Salvador is a national title given to a woman chosen to represent El Salvador at Miss Grand International.[1][2][3][4] The title was first mentioned in 2013 when a San Salvador-based model, Elisa Durán, was appointed to represent the country at the inaugural edition of Miss Grand International in Thailand.[5] Since 2018, the right to send an El Salvadoran representative to compete at Miss Grand International has belonged to a national pageant chaired by Francisco Cortez, Certamen Nacional de la Belleza El Salvador (CNB El Salvador),[6] in which the main winner was titled Reina de El Salvador and customarily assumed to be Miss Grand El Salvador.[1][2][4]
Since its first participation in 2013, El Salvadoran representatives obtained placement at the Miss Grand International pageant only once in 2020 when Luciana Martínez was placed among the top 20 finalists.[7][8][9]
History
El Salvador debuted at Miss Grand International in 2013 with an appointed representative, Elisa Durán.[5] Later in 2014, one of the Nuestra Belleza El Salvador 2011 finalists, Andrea Mariona, was assumed to be Miss Grand El Salvador 2014 but did to compete internationally for undisclosed reasons.[10]
After four years of absence, the country turned back to the competition in 2018, when the president of the Certamen Nacional de la Belleza El Salvador (CNB El Salvador) pageant, Francisco Cortez, purchased the license and appointed the 2016 pageant winner, Génesis Fuentes, to compete at the international stage in Myanmar.[6] After that, the winner of his affiliated pageant automatically assumed the title of Miss Grand El Salvador and obtained the right to compete at Miss Grand International in that particular year.[1][2][3][4]
In 2023, the Salvadoran representative to Miss Grand International was elected through the stand-alone pageant, which is considered, to date, the first and only edition of the Miss Grand El Salvador pageant;[11] the representative for the 2024 international contest was expected to be chosen via the CNB El Salvador stage, as previously done from 2019-2022.[12]
Editions
The Miss Grand El Salvador pageant was held as a stand-alone pageant only once in 2023.[13][14]