She was a crowd favourite, thanks to her pretty smile, charming answers and 1.72m-tall, curvy physique.
So what went wrong for student Sarah Noble?
It was her last-minute decision to wear jeans instead of a bikini bottom for the bikini catwalk segment.
According to the judges, Sarah, born to a British father and Malay-Chinese mother, was penalised for that and lost points that almost cost her a spot in the top five.
While other contestants strutted their stuff in their bikinis, Sarah and Republic Polytechnic student Farah Atika, 20, worked the runway in bikini tops and jeans.
Miss Atika's father is a mix of Malay, Indonesian and Dutch, while her mother is also Malay-Chinese. They said that it was having their menstrual periods - not religious concerns - that influenced their wardrobe choice.
Both have been featured in The New Paper previously as Miss Singapore World 2012 contestants in bikinis.
Sarah, 18, a Singapore Polytechnic student, told TNP: "If I had appeared in a national newspaper's front page in a bikini, and I didn't wear one for this competition, it's not because I didn't want to.
"I was having my time of the month, so I opted for jeans... I thought the judges would understand that.
"How one would get round this problem is by wearing tampons, but I don't do that."
Third runner-up Jaime Lim, 18, a Management Development Institute Of Singapore student, said she would have done the same.
Said Jaime: "We were told that if it happened, wear a tampon. But I think I would still feel uncomfortable, so I may have opted for jeans as well."
Sarah admitted that she did not explain or discuss her decision with the organiser and judges as it was a "last-minute situation".
Miscommunication may have been the cause of Sarah's placing as some of the judges presumed that her choice of bottom reflected her stand in the competition - that even if she had won, she wouldn't wear a bikini for the international finals.
So if she could turn back time, would she have worn a bikini bottom?
She said: "No, but I would have explained to the judges that the jeans were just a one-off thing and that I would have worn a bikini in the international finals.
"The question I was asked onstage was who was my role model and I said, 'myself', because I learn from my own mistakes every day.
"This is definitely one of those lessons."
This article was first published in The New Paper.
