Premiere San Antonio 2026 & Nailympia Competition Highlights and Winners

Premiere San Antonio 2026 brought the professional beauty industry back to Texas for a weekend of education, new products, industry connections, and international nail competition.In this episode of Nail News, GlossaryLive founder and Nailympia Head Judge Alisha Rimando heads south from Dallas to San Antonio for the 4th Nailympia San Antonio, sponsored by SalonCentric. The weekend began Saturday evening with the Nailympia judges’ cocktail reception, bringing together an international team of experienced judges before competition officially began.On Sunday, the Premiere San Antonio show floor opened and Nailympia got underway. This year’s competition welcomed 51 competitors representing seven countries: the United States, China, Ireland, Poland, Canada, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom.Competitors participated across 14 competitions, with 16 judges evaluating poster and turn-in entries and another 15 judges overseeing the live arena competitions. Categories ranged from technical disciplines including Gel Polish Manicure, Salon Nails, Liquid & Powder Acrylic Competition Style Nails, UV Gel Competition Style Nails, and Stiletto Nails to creative categories including Reality Nails, Runway Nails, Flat Art Boxed, AI Nail Vision Styling Poster, Extreme Nail Styling Poster, and To Stiletto & Beyond.Following two days of competition and judging, Nailympia concluded Monday with its awards ceremony and the presentation of the event’s highest honors.Halyna Kaliugina of the USA earned Art Winner of Winners, while Larry Ngo was named Top USA Tech and Division 2 Winner of Winners. Sezy Tran of the USA earned Division 1 Winner of Winners, and Ryuji Nakayama of China took home Division 3 Winner of Winners.Ireland’s Maksymilian Borowy achieved two of the weekend’s biggest honors, earning Individual Top Scorer and becoming the 4th Nailympia Premiere Cup Winner.Beyond the competition arena, Premiere San Antonio offered another opportunity for beauty professionals to reconnect, discover what’s happening throughout the industry, and strengthen relationships that extend across countries and careers.For Alisha, being just a few hours from home made this Texas event especially fun, but the international turnout demonstrated something much bigger: professional nail competition continues to connect artists from around the world while creating opportunities for new and experienced competitors to challenge themselves, develop their skills, and receive recognition for their work.