The 13-year-old was eliminated in round five of the competition after she misspelt the word “photophygous”, defined as preferring or thriving in shade. TODAY’s Carson Daly asks 13-year-old Jairam Hathwar and 11-year-old Nihar Janga how they’re feeling after their big wins-and stumps them with a spelling question!
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It’s the third consecutive year the spelling bee has ended in a tie.
The winning word for Jairam was Feldenkrais, which is a physical education system.
Back to the winners, what does the future hold for the two master spellers? Janga was seen shaking his head as soon as Hathwar began misspelling a word, and he applauded aggressively at his rival, in what may have been an attempt to get inside Hathwar’s head.
“What I have learnt throughout this whole experience is that family is important, and it doesn’t necessarily mean your immediate family, but persons who you have met along the way”.
Two movie-size screens flank the stage, one showing photos of each student, the other showing live footage of them spelling their words and their parents reacting to the result. The 13-year-old from Glen Allen, Virginia, made the top 10 the past two years. I don’t think that’s the case: Literally thousands of children entered this competition, and 284 went to Washington for the finals.
“Kyle just got eviscerated by the Scripps Spelling Bee account on Twitter”.
“When I got my first word right, I didn’t know it”, he said. Sylvie Lamontagne of Colorado hilariously asked pronouncer Jacques Bailly for an easy word, but she got 9th place a year ago, so clearly she can handle the hard ones. As they celebrate their spelling slayage, get to know more about these two champs. “He’s going to go places”. Finally, it came down to Jairam and Nihar. “I can’t say anything, I’m only in fifth grade”.
Nupur Lala’s 1999 victory was featured in the documentary Spellbound. But this year, one of those co-champions celebrated like a famous Dallas Cowboys wide receiver.
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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. Jairam, on the other hand, wants to go to Harvard to study medicine so he could become a physician.
