Miss Universe pageant officials have ‘‘fired’’ the reigning Miss Universe, Russian cop Oxana Fedorova, and will replace her with Miss Panama Justin Pasek, the runner-up, a spokeswoman for the pageant said on Monday.The raven-haired Fedorova, who delighted Russians when she was portrayed there as a sharp-shooting St Petersburg police lieutenant in addition to being a beauty queen and post-graduate university student with a law degree, has returned home, the spokeswoman said. She will be replaced by ‘‘crowd favourite’’ Pasek, the spokeswoman added.It marked the first time in the pageant’s 52-year history that a Miss Universe has been stripped of her title, and Fedorova had been the first Miss Russia to win the crown.Organisers of the pageant, which is co-owned by New York real estate mogul Donald Trump, scheduled a press conference for Tuesday in New York to announce the switch.‘‘It’s too bad it didn’t work out better with Oxana but our new Miss Universe is equally beautiful and she is a tremendous crowd pleaser,’’ Trump told the Post.Fedorova, meanwhile, has denied allegations in the New York Post that she is married and has put on weight. ‘‘I am not married and I have not put on weight,’’ declared Fedorova in an interview published by the Russian daily Gazeta on Tuesday, adding she wanted to concentrate on her studies.She told the paper she would soon be undertaking a thesis in civil law at the University of the Russian Interior Ministry in Saint Petersburg.The New York Post claimed that the 24-year-old had put on weight, got pregnant and was married to her companion, a Russian businessman, quoting sources in the Miss Universe Organisation. First Runner-Up Justine Pasek will now hold the title of Miss Universe 2002.
