Nihar has also become the youngest victor of the bee on record.
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The winners of the 89th annual competition – held at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland – are Jairam Hathwar, 13, of Corning, New York, and Nihar Janga, 11, of Austin, Texas.
Bee organizers decided to make changes after the competition ended in a tie the past two years. Biological terms were particularly challenging, and shorter words often present a greater challenge than longer ones, which are made up of roots that spellers can piece together.
Each receives $45,000 in cash and prizes.
“I’m just speechless”, Jairam told reporters after the contest that was televised on cable network ESPN and repeatedly saw the audience in a hotel ballroom burst into cheers.
Nihar, the youngest champion since 2002, thanked his mother and added: “I can’t say anything”.
The other words the two got right included Kjeldahl, Hohenzollern, juamave, groenedael, zindiq and euchologion.
Thirteen-year-old Jairam is the younger brother of the 2014 co-champion, Sriram Hathwar.
“Hello again”, Jairam said to Bailly when he stepped up to the microphone.
One of the two has also become the youngest ever to win it. First, he never expected to win. This year, the final three spellers could be forced to spell more, and judges can adjust the difficulty of the winning words as needed.
Nihar and Jairam have become close friends over the past year, but Nihar said he didn’t consider misspelling on goal when he had chances to win. Jairam’s brother, Sriram, was a 2014 co-champion.
Nihar, Speller 232, was the only speller to get a flawless score on the preliminary test. Snehaa takes home $20,000 for finishing third, and Sylvie Lamontagne of Lakewood, Colorado, got $10,000 for fourth place. Both are 13-year-old eighth-graders, meaning this year was their last chance.
“He did pretty good for a first-grader”, Nihar said.
Seven of the last 10 finalists were Indian-Americans.
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He hopes to attend Harvard University to study medicine someday so that he can become a physician.
