Two W-I-N-N-E-​R-S at the Scripps National Spelling Bee

 

By Beemerboyz803

Last week, from Tuesday to Thursday, the Scripps National Spelling Bee was held in Washington D.C. There, 281 spellers out of 11 million from across the globe competed to see who would take home almost $35,000, a dictionary, and a trophy. 

The week started off on Tuesday with a computer test. Wednesday, all of the spellers went on stage for some on-stage spelling. After two rounds of preliminaries and a computer test, 46 advanced to the semifinals.

Thursday was the most intense day of the bee. It started off with a semifinals computer test, and then with several rounds onstage. Out of the 46, 12 advanced to the Round 7, the start of the finals. It was intense.

Among the finalists were a fifth-timer from New York, a seventh-grader who didn't make the semifinals the previous year, the brother of a past champion, a hyperactive eighth-grader who knew a majority of his words and would jump up each time he got a word correct, a writer who'd pretend to type on a keyboard, a 5th-grade refrigerator-magnet collector, and a tap-dancing seventh-grader. 

By the end of the first round of the finals (Round 7), tap-dancing Samuel Pereles from Virginia was eliminated with the word ecribellate, leaving 11. Round 8 knocked out the most people: Neha Konakalla from Cupertino, California with taglioni, Jamaica's Tajaun Gibbison on the word chartula, keyboard-typing Kate Miller with exochorion, and magnet-collecting Tejas Muthusamy with hallenkirche.

By Round 10, the newborn fan-favorite, the hyperactive Jacob Williamson, had been knocked out by kabaragoya, a word he actually knew but confused the "K" with a "C". After Jacob was eliminated, six remained: four boys and two girls. 

The two remaining girls were eliminated in Round 11. Orlando's Mary Horton, the relative of two past competitors, was knocked out on the word aetites, and Illinois' Alia Abiad was eliminated on irbis, the Russian word for snow leopard.

The next round, Round 12, another contestant was eliminated. Ohio's Ashwin Veeramani, the relative of 2010 champion Anamika Veeramani, had been eliminated on the word depayse. 

It wasn't until Round 15 when the third-to-last contestant heard the dreaded sound of the bell. Missouri's Gokul Venkatachalam had misspelled Kierkegaardian, leaving New York's Sriram Hathwar and Texas' Ansun Sujoe.

In Round 16, Hathwar misspelled corpsbruder, giving Sujoe (who didn't make the semifinals last year) a chance to beat the five-timer for the time. He received the word antigropelos, for waterproof leggings. He misspelled it, giving Hathwar a chance to redeem himself.

By Round 22, Hathwar had correctly spelled stichomythia, and Sujoe had correctly spelled feuilleton, finishing the list of the Final 25 words. The two had been declared co-champions of the National Spelling Bee, a first in over 50 years.