Taliana María Vargas Carrillo born December 20, 1987 in Santa Marta is Miss Colombia 2007 and Miss Universe first runner-up 2008. Vargas is a Colombian student of Journalism at the Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria, Virginia.Vargas is of Greek descent through her grandparents, and has Italian relatives. She speaks fluent Spanish, English, and Italian, as well as some Greek and Arabic.
Vargas was crowned as Miss Colombia on November 12, 2007, thus bringing the first crown to her home department of Magdalena, Colombia. During the three-week long competition, she was also awarded with the Miss Elegance, Best Face awards and the queen of the police.
During the pageant in the Best In Bikini event (which had no bearings on the selection of the top 15 semi-finalists), Vargas was awarded 2nd place while Miss Mexico, Elisa Nájera, took first place. On July 14, 2008 during the pageant's finals, Vargas was announced as one of the 15 semi-finalists. In the swimsuit competition, she received the highest score with 9.433, thus entering the top 10 in first place. During the evening gown portion, she received one of the highest televised scores in recent years: 9.829. Vargas thus became one of the 5 final contestants, coming in first place. However, after the interview portion, it was Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela who would went on to win title of Miss Universe 2008 while Vargas ended up as first runner-up. The same situation would happened one year later in Miss Universe 2009 with Miss Dominican Republic 2009, Ada de la Cruz, who had the highest overall score but also came in at second place.
