Tonight’s finals concluded at 8 P.M. EDT with two new national champions: Jairam Hathwar and Nihar “The Machine” Janga.
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Earlier, he had impressed with his grasp of words.
The finalists were winnowed from more than 280 spelling whizzes after two days of written and oral tests in a Washington suburb.
This story has been corrected to show that the bee has produced Indian-American champions for 14 years out of the last 18 years, instead of 19.
When Nebraska’s Tharein Potuhera correctly spelled the word “propinquity” at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, he did what any of us would have done…he dabbed on em’. This giant win for Janga follows his advancement from the Houston Public Media Spelling Bee, the second largest bee in the nation. He almost won outright twice in the championship rounds following errors by Hathwar, but each time flubbed a single letter.
Jairam, whose brother had won 2014 championship with another co-champion, gave credit to his brother for being his inspiration.
Nihar was named co-champion of the 2016 competition along with Jairam Hathwar, a seventh-grader from Painted Post, New York on Thursday after battling 25 rounds head to head.
Among the words they got right: Kjeldahl, Hohenzollern, juamave, groenedael, zindiq and euchologion. More than 280 kids participated in this annual event that has been catching the imagination of people all around the world for many years now. An audience favorite, he often verified definitions of obscure words with the judges – “is that an Irish prime minister?” – rather than requesting them. “I thought they would win”.
“I thought it was over”, Jairam said afterwards. I made it this far, I didn’t want to get out. Only two were so good that they couldn’t come up with words to stump them.
The tie was unexpected after bee officials changed the rules to make it harder. He said the best advice he got from his brother was not to get too agitated if he was given a word he didn’t know.
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He then correctly spelled the word, bringing cheers from the crowd.
