LONDON, 8 December 2002 — With a gleaming smile and a graceful bow, Miss Turkey won the Miss World contest yesterday, bringing to a close an international pageant that incited deadly rioting in Nigeria.

Azra Akin stood proudly to attention while her national anthem was played, after she accepted the glittering tiara and $156,000 prize from last year’s winner, Nigeria’s Agbani Darego.

Ninety-two contestants took part in the show, which was shunted to London after Muslim-Christian rioting last month killed more than 200 people, forcing it out of Nigeria.

The pageant’s motto is “beauty with a purpose,’’ and among this year’s contestants were lawyers, businesswomen, architects and a doctor.

Unlike the pageant’s heyday in the 1970s, this year’s beauty queens glided along the catwalk in evening gowns rather than swimsuits. But swimwear wasn’t entirely absent yesterday. As the women strutted across the elaborate stage, footage of them shot beside a Nigerian waterfall was flashed across giant screens.

Despite its 11th hour relocation, the 52nd pageant was slick and glitzy, watched by a sellout audience of several hundred at Alexandra Palace convention center in north London.

Organizers say the show was broadcast in 137 countries to a global audience of more than 2 billion.

In Britain, however, where the pageant is widely seen as a quaint, kitsch spectacle, no television channel agreed to broadcast it.

The Nigerian rioting was barely mentioned during the upbeat show yesterday.

“Our thoughts go out to the families that suffered,” said co-host Sean Kanan, an actor from US soap “The Bold and The Beautiful.’’

Amina Lawal, the Nigerian woman sentenced to death by a court for adultery, gained a tribute. A statement read out on behalf of the contestants remembered “all humans across the world who are threatened and abused.”

Miss World is used to controversy. In 1970, feminists threw bags of flour during the event, which was hosted by Bob Hope at London’s Royal Albert Hall. In 1996, when the finals were held in the Indian city of Bangalore, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at rock-throwing protesters, and one man committed suicide by self-immolation. Still, this was arguably the contest’s most troubled year.

The controversy began when several contestants boycotted the competition after a court in Nigeria condemned a woman to death by stoning for having a child outside marriage.

The Nigerian government promised the sentence would not be carried out, and organizers pressed ahead. (AP)