11 young finalists compete for America’s Best Spelling Title at Scripps National Bee
How do you write pressure? The Scripps National Spelling Bee hopes to find out, as the annual contest will crown a champion tonight.
Following preliminaries earlier this week, 11 teen finalists will gather in a convention center ballroom outside Washington on Thursday night to demonstrate their mastery of Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged dictionary.
The winner will be awarded the championship trophy and a $50,000 prize.
The bee has undergone many changes due to a tie in 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic, which wiped it out a year later.
But one thing that hasn’t changed is the skill and dedication of the best spellers in the English language.
11 finalists for the Scripps National Spelling Bee pose for a photo after the first day’s competition. They are all between 11 and 14 years old, four are from California
The typical workload for a top level speller: 3-4 hours of study per weekday, and more on weekends.
And yet they still find time to excel in other disciplines — 14-year-old finalist Charlotte Walsh of Arlington, Virginia, just completed an Advanced Placement Calculus course — as an eighth grader.
Bee began in 1925 and is open to students through eighth grade. Spellers qualify by winning regional bees across the country. At the start of this year’s competition there were 229 children on the podium.
Most of this year’s finalists are Indian-American, a trend that has persisted for two decades. Twenty-one of the past 23 champions have South Asian ancestry.
Thursday’s winner will receive more than $50,000 in cash and prizes. Champions usually go on a media tour and act as the face of the bee throughout the year.
Many eventually return to the bee in other roles, including as part of Scripps’ word selection panel.
Vanya Shivashankar, a 2015 co-champion, has been involved in the bee broadcast ever since and this year was promoted to the role of master of ceremonies — a job that fell to “Star Trek” actor and literacy advocate LeVar Burton last year.
The bee had co-champions from 2014 to 2016 before the 2019 “octo-champions”, but under current rules, ties are impossible.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee will crown a champion, with 11 finalists meeting Thursday night in a convention center ballroom outside Washington to demonstrate their mastery of Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged dictionary
Wisconsin State Journal representative Aiden Wijeyakulasuriya of Madison, WI, lost in the semifinals
Surya Kapu, a 14-year-old from South Jordan, Utah, is the only returning finalist. He finished in fifth place last year
Shradha Rachamreddy, a 13-year-old from San Jose, California, comes in with arguably the strongest spelling resume, having won several highly competitive online and in-person bees that spellers use to prepare for Scripps
Vikrant Chintanaboina, 13, is one of four finalists from California
Dhruv Subramanian, 12, of San Ramon, California, can’t contain his excitement
Arth Dalsania of Thousand Oaks, California will step up to play in the semifinals
Dev Shah, a 14-year-old from Largo, Florida, lives up to his word as his competitors watch
If the match reaches 1 hour and 55 minutes with no winner, the remaining players will compete in a lightning fast tiebreaker.
Surya Kapu, a 14-year-old from South Jordan, Utah, is the only returning finalist. He finished in fifth place last year.
The youngest remaining semifinalist is 11-year-old Sarah Fernandes from Omaha, Nebraska, who is four months younger than the youngest-ever winner, Nihar Janga, a 2016 co-champion at age 11.
Shradha Rachamreddy, a 13-year-old from San Jose, California, comes in with arguably the strongest spelling resume, having won several highly competitive online and in-person bees that spellers use to prepare for Scripps.
She is one of four finalists from California, along with 14-year-old Vikrant Chintanaboina, also from San Jose; 12-year-old Dhruv Subramanian of San Ramon; and 14-year-old Arth Dalsania from Camarillo.
The other finalists are Dev Shah, a 14-year-old from Largo, Florida; Aryan Khedkar, a 12-year-old from Rochester Hills, Michigan; Pranav Anandh, a 14-year-old from Glen Mills, Pennsylvania; and Tarini Nandakumar, a 12-year-old from Round Rock, Texas.
The semi-finals in particular were a triumph of efficiency for Scripps and his word selection panel, aided perhaps by a unique, pre-bee standardized test that allowed Scripps to assess spellcasters’ skills.
Of the 55 quarter-finalists, 33 were eliminated in the first spell round of the semi-final. The word panel continued its plan to make the vocabulary questions fairer than last year; only two focused on definitions.
The youngest remaining semifinalist is 11-year-old Sarah Fernandes from Omaha, Nebraska, who is four months younger than the youngest-ever winner, Nihar Janga, a 2016 co-champion at age 11.
Aryan Khedkar, a 12-year-old from Rochester Hills, Michigan, is one of 11 finalists
Pranav Anandh, a 14-year-old from Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, will go for the title on Thursday night
Tarini Nandakumar, a 12-year-old from Round Rock, Texas, is one of the younger players in the league
14-year-old finalist Charlotte Walsh of Arlington, Virginia, just completed an Advanced Placement Calculus course — as an eighth grader
The players show great sportsmanship despite the high stakes of the competition
And then, in the final spelling round of the semi-final, nine of the remaining twenty were misspelled.
Considering that almost everyone who competes in the National Spelling Bee – even several recent champions – end up missing a word, the default attitude for spellers is nervous, jittery, defensive.
Even the most prepared children know that the bell is about to ring.