Romanian swimmer Andreea Dragoi, a sophomore competing at San Jose State University, was recently announced as the winner of the 2022 Miss California U.S. Nation Pageant. She is now qualified for the Miss U.S. Nation Beauty Pageant, a national competition where she will run against different beauty pageant winners across the country in Washington, D.C. in October 2022. Prior to winning Miss California, she had won the Miss San Jose U.S. Nation Pageant earlier this year.
Dragoi has had considerable success in her swimming career. Prior to arriving at San Jose State, she represented her native Romania at the 2019 European and World Junior Championships, where she placed 17th in the 200 fly, 27th in the 200 IM, and 34th in both the 50 and 100 fly at the latter meet. In her freshman year at SJSU, she qualified for the 2022 CSCAA National Championships, where she once again swam the 200 fly and finished 23rd. She also competed at the 2022 Mountain West Conference Championships, where she scored 15 points for SJSU by placing 12th in the 200 fly and setting a best time of 2:02.22.
Dragoi’s Best Times (SCY and LCM):
- 100 yard fly: 56.95
- 200 yard fly: 2:02.22
- 50 meter fly: 28.74
- 100 meter fly: 1:02.03
- 200 meter fly: 2:15.38
- 200 meter IM: 2:20.96
Although Dragoi has seen success both as a swimmer and a beauty pageant, it did not come without challenge. She had to endure two serious injuries recently, as she first dislocated her kneecap in 2019 and then partially tore her ACL in fall 2021, which caused her to miss training for three weeks. Because of her physical setbacks, she has chosen to study rehabilitation sciences in college.
“It is very important to believe in themselves,” Dragoi said when asked about advice she would give others pursuing the same kind of career as her. “Never give up on the challenges that you are facing in life because all dreams can become reality. I have competed in two pageants, I qualified for European Junior Championships and the World Cup and I did really well on my IB exams. It is all possible.”
The Miss US Nation pageant is one out of the several national-level beauty pageants in America, which includes the Miss USA pageant (which selects the American entrant for the Miss Universe pageant) and the Miss America pageant. According to the Miss US Nation pageant website, the competition is “focused on molding the careers of aspiring models by helping the young ladies with self-awareness, confidence building, public speaking & gaining the proper exposure to reach their goals.”
Dragoi isn’t the only person in the swimming community who has been involved in beauty pageants before. In fact, the most notable “beauty queen” connected to swimming also came from California. Nicole Johnson (who now goes by Nicole Phelps), the wife of 28-time Olympic medalist Michael Phelps, won the Miss California USA title in 2010, and placed ninth overall in the national-level Miss USA competition that year.
Now she is one step closer to winning Miss Lady Woman Global International.
Was Nicole Johnson also a swimmer?
There she is, Miss California U.S. Nation.
Exactly the swimming news we all signed up for am I right?
Not swimming news directly, but my first thought here is that potential NIL money means we may see more swimmers doing more high profile things out of the water.
But she’s Romanian. How could a Romanian be the “American entrant for the Miss Universe pageant?”
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The year of Romania, without doubt.
Completely unrelated, but does anyone know if San Jose State University applications are still open?
Devastating news