Serbian stunner Jelena Mandic

Jel for leather

In this life, sometimes success seems in our grasp, but then a brassy Canadian in a tiara wrestles it away from you.

Jelena Mandic looked to have it all: bottle blonde, winning smile, nice turn in vacuous phrases, and a dedicated attitude to showing off her tidy derriere in bikinis.

Spotted in her local beauticians, this law student quickly pulled herself through the beauty pageant catfights to be crowned her country's number one model.

Her reward was to be sent teetering off in high heels as Serbia and Montenegro's representative at Miss Universe 2005.

Click here to visit Jelena Mandic

But, it wasn't to be, Jelena didn't even make the semi-finals cut, even though decked out in the obligatory white bikini she looked hotter than a smoking piece of shrapnel. All hail the swimsuit category!

Miss Canada swanned off with the crown, leaving Jelena to head back to her uni library (why did we just have D&D players in ours?), possibly muttering one of those Greek quotes she memorised for the show – we mean, knows off by heart.

"Omnia Mea Mecum Porto" is a fav saying of this student pin-up, which means: "With my knowledge, I carry all my things with me."

Yeah, well, we hear the crime rates are a bit dodgy in her homeland, so it's probably a sensible motto.

Click here to visit Jelena Mandic