It's crunch time for our young beauty in Germany

She lives in Germany and is turning audience heads with her stunning looks, but Matoom might be even more excited than she is as he mobilises Thai votes for her.

According to the latest tally, 17-year-old Baitong is second in the viewers’ poll thanks to massive support from Thailand, but Matoom is determined to get her into the top spot. “I’m assuming they’re blocking a lot of IP addresses from Thailand to make the contest fair for all voters, or maybe the fans of the two other finalists have been bombarding them with votes too,” he says. 

It was Matoom who talked his sister into signing up for the show in the first place. He too grew up in Germany and has long been a fan of the show, so he kept bugging her to try. “Well I’m gay so I couldn’t enter myself, but it was possible for her,” he tells Thai Rath Online. 

Baitong – who goes by the name Anu in Germany – has done far better in the contest than her brother expected. “In the early running it seemed like she wasn’t being highlighted, but that changed later,” he says. 

Just by getting into the finals, she’s already achieved something outstanding, Matoom says. “She’s well known now and she already has a contract with Heidi Klum, so that’s great,” he points out, referring to the supermodel now running her own modelling agency who’s also a judge on the TV show. Meanwhile Cosmopolitan’s German edition has come out with three different covers, each with one of the show’s finalists, including Anu. 

Still, with the winner to be announced on Thursday, Matoom says his sister isn’t feeling much pressure. Not even after the show’s finale had to be postponed more than a week after a bomb threat cleared the theatre where it was being staged before a live audience. “She may be feeling a little bit more pressure than the other two just because she’d love to make Thailand proud,” he says. 

Anu’s darker complexion and angled features have reminded a lot of people of another supermodel, Naomi Campbell, while others think she looks like Thai former model Rojana “Yui” Petchkanha. Baitong takes that as a compliment because she regards Yui as one of the best. 

With two days to go, Thais living in France, Austria and Sweden are pulling out the stops in the voting, and the women’s section at Kapook.com has published instructions on how to vote for her on the German site www.Prosiebeen.de. 

Adding encouragement, Matoom posted a short clip of Baitong on Facebook and Pantip.com thanking Thais for their support. Since she’s been living in Germany since she was two, her Thai isn’t fluent, but she certainly managed to say thanks in a cute way. Good luck, Anu!