At 11 years old, Janga, from Austin, Texas, is one of the youngest competitors to ever be crowned champion. 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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“I can’t even remember the last time he misspelled a word online”, said Mitchell, 14, of Marblehead, Massachusetts.
Both, too, want to be doctors: Jairam hopes to study medicine at Harvard, and Nihar aspires to be a neurosurgeon.
The bee has had co-champs for three years in a row.
This year’s victor, who will be crowned live on a prime time Thursday night broadcast on ESPN, will take home $40,000, a trophy and other prizes. The Scripps National Spelling Bee has an age limit of 13, meaning that both Kumar and Lamontagne will get another shot at winning it.
Jairam, whose dad takes him to play golf when he’s had enough spelling practice, channeled his favorite player, Jordan Spieth.
“I can’t say anything”.
On Wednesday, Cooper was among 45 spellers who advanced in the competition out of an initial field of 285.
“I don’t like sitting still anyway, but when I get nervous, that, like, triples”, said Sylvie, 13.
Eighth grader Snehaa Ganesh Kumar from California, who had tied for fourth place previous year, came third.
Jairam’s brother Sriram competed in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2008, 2009, 2011 (tied for 6th place), 2013 (tied for 3rd place) and 2014 (co-champion).
“I wanted to win, but at the same time I felt really bad for Jairam”, Nihar said.
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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. When the dust settled, 11-year-old Nihar Janga not only proved that was a heck of a speller, he also showed that he was a huge Dez Bryant fan, as he threw up the wide receiver’s trademark “X” in celebration. Flown to Maryland with financial aid from the Times-Union, he joined 284 other first- through eighth-grade spelling champions from North America at the Gaylord Convention Center, including seven others from Florida and two from Georgia.
