After battling 25 rounds head to head, Nihar Janga, from Texas, and Jairam Hathwar, from NY, 13 were eventually crowned co-winners and each awarded a not-so-shabby prize of $40,000.
Advertisement
In a tough contest with some of the most obscure words ever to be used, two boys have been crowned champions of the US Scripps National Spelling Bee.
For the third year in a row, two contestants are taking the title of Scripps National Spelling Bee champion.
Coincidentally, Jairam’s brother Sriram was co-champs along with Ansun Sujoe in 2014.
Jairam won with Feldenkrais, which means a system of body movements intended to ease tension. If you’re a diehard Dallas Cowboys fan like 11-year-old Nihar Janga, there’s only one logical way.
“I’m just speechless”, said Nihar, of Austin, Texas, who was competing in his first bee.
Last year, Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam were declared co-champions.
“I wanted to win, but at the same time, I felt really bad for Jairam”, he said. Nihar, on the other hand, KNEW PRETTY MUCH EVERY WORD ASKED OF HIM OFF THE TOP OF HIS HEAD. Someone tweeted to Scripps Spelling Bee saying: “Unsure of why the national spelling bee has a “comfort couch” you [expletive] lost suck it up quit teaching kids it’s okay to loose”.
Back to the winners, what does the future hold for the two master spellers?
One of the biggest cheers of the night came when Nihar successfully spelled “taoiseach”. “He’s going to go places”.
Amazon is making the most of its new sponsorship of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, running four 30-second spots during Thursday’s bee finals broadcast, Mashable reports.
The other American-Indians among the finalists were Rutvik Gandhasri, Sreeniketh Vogoti, Jashun Paluru and Smirithi Upadhyayula.
The Bee has produced co-champs three straight years. Jairam also wants to be a doctor, hoping to attend Harvard University.
Advertisement
We thank and appreciate all of those – students, parents, teachers, organizers, volunteers and sponsors – who help make the annual spelling bees at all levels a big success.
