Miss USA Nia Sanchez forgets her home state of Nevada’s capital

BASIC geography has proven the downfall of yet another US beauty queen, with Miss USA floored by a very simple question she should have known the answer to.

‘Oh oh ahhh, ummm’ ... Miss Nevada USA Nia Sanchez drew a blank when asked the capital of her home state by a radio host. Critics suggest it is because she is really a California Girl. Picture: Jonathan Bachman

BASIC geography has proven the downfall of yet another US beauty queen, with Miss USA forgetting the capital of her home state.

Former Miss Nevada Nia Sanchez was on morning radio when asked to name her state’s capital, Fox News reports.

“Oh oh ahhh, ummm, oh my gosh,” she said, playing for time. Before her embarrassment became too acute, the show’s host offered the answer: “Carson City.”

Thank you I was gonna say that, I was like, that one DJ host on MTV, back in the day, his name, that’s how I always remembered it,” she said, referring to television presenter Carson Daly.

Victorious ... Miss Nevada Nia Sanchez celebrates with her competitors after being crowned Miss USA 2014. Picture: Jonathan Bachman

The faux pas, however, may have occurred because Ms Sanchez had only met Nevada’s minimum residency requirements in order to compete for the sash and crown. According to a source, she had previously competed unsuccessfully for the Miss California title on three occasions.

“She never actually moved to Nevada, but continued to work at Disney and live in California, setting up some minimum paper trail to appear like she was in Nevada and allow her to compete,” the insider told FOX411.

Ms Sanchez says that is not true and that she lived in Las Vegas for 18 months running up to being awarded the title.

TITLE: MISS SOUTH CAROLINA FLUBS HER GEOGRAPHY SIZE: 420x315px SCROLLING: no

The incident was reminiscent of Miss Teen South Carolina’s excruciating attempt to explain why a fifth of Americans could not locate their country on a work map. “I personally believe that US, Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, people out there in our nation don’t have maps and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as,” she offered. “And I believe that they should, our education over here in the US should help the US, uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future [for our children].”

A YouTube video of the 2007 incident has been viewed more than 60 million times.

Originally published as Miss USA Nia Sanchez forgets her home state of Nevada’s capital