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The Guardian - US
Sport
Bryan Armen Graham

Florida’s Bruhat Soma wins National Spelling Bee finals in dramatic spell-off – as it happened

ION Bryan
Bruhat Soma, 12, of Tampa, Florida, stands amid confetti after winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday in Oxon Hill, Maryland.
Bruhat Soma, 12, of Tampa, Florida, stands amid confetti after winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday in Oxon Hill, Maryland. Photograph: Nathan Howard/AP

That’s all for tonight. Thanks for following along with us and be sure to read the report from Thursday’s heart-pounding finals here.

Florida!!! Bruhat Soma is the second National Spelling Bee champion from the Sunshine State in the past two years after Largo’s Dev Shah in 2023. But he’s only the fourth in the competition’s 99-year history, joining West Palm Beach’s Wendy Guey (1996) and Tampa’s Nupur Lala (1999).

“I just put a lot of time into spelling,” Bruhat says. “Now I’m really just happy. I really can’t describe it. Like I’m still shaking.”

He’s joined on stage by his family, where his father fights back tears as he’s interviewed.

“It’s the most proudest moment for the family,” he says. “We’re very happy to have this moment. I don’t have any words to say. I’m so happy and very happy for Bruhat. He did a lot of hard work.”

Updated

Bruhat Soma wins the 96th National Spelling Bee!

The results are in. Bruhat spelled 29 of 30 words correctly. Upon a review of the tape, it seems he only spelled porphyrio incorrectly (P-O-R-P-H-E-R-I-O).

Faizan spelled 21 of 25 words correctly, flubbing a total of four. He realized almost instantaneously that he’s missed on sericin (S-A-R-A-C-E-N). He then missed on panetiere (P-A-N-E-T-I-E-R), sagaie (S-A-G-A-I), myrabalanus (M-Y-R-O-B-A-L-A-N-U-S) but was so far behind he kept plowing forward.

That means Bruhat Soma is your 2024 National Spelling Bee champion! The confetti falls and the entire conference room is on their feet!

Updated

Spell-off!

A stunning effort from Bruhat Soma, he spells every word thrown his way correctly over the 90-second duration: brouette, adelantado, hyporcheme, bisellium, mycteric, endecha, sericin, nyctalopia, ascham, wenzel, cebell, heautophany, kwazoku, panetiere, sagaie, nachschlage, exorhason, porphyrio, giclee, ashwagandha, puszta, asarotum, scintillante, myrabalanus, sciniph, voussoir, caizinha, ramoneur, aposiopesis then abseil. The 31th word is posology, but time is called before he can finish spelling it.

Faizan Zaki will try to match or best Bruhat’s total. He asks to take a deep breath before he begins. After about 20 seconds, he stars. He’s spelling, mostly correctly it seems, but at a markedly slower pace than Bruhat. The shortfall mounts. I don’t think he’s going to catch him! The bell sounds before he can complete voussoir. That leaves him five words short of Bruhat. The judges are going through the recordings to check for errors but it’s looking like Bruhat Soma will be our champion …

Updated

Spell-off time! Each speller will get 90 seconds to spell as many words as possible in a lightning-round format. They’re both spelling from the same predetermined list of words and, obviously won’t get to hear the other’s attempt. The speller who spells the most words correctly in that minute-and-a-half span will be declared the champion.

Updated

Faizan Zaki from Texas is given the word nicuri. He waits not even a full second before rattling it off to close the 14th round. A mic-drop moment! We’re down to two spellers through 14 rounds and we’re headed to a spell-off for only the second time in Scripps National Spelling Bee history!

ELIMINATED: Ananya Rao Prassanna (murrina), two spellers left

Bruhat Soma from Florida spells the word Hoofddorp correctly. Now it’s Ananya Rao Prassanna’s turn. She’s given the word murrina (muh-RYE-nuh), a disease of Central American horses and mules attributed to a protozoan blood parasite of the genus Trypanosoma (T hippicum), characterized by emaciation, anemia, edema, conjunctivitis, fever, and paralysis of the hind legs, and often considered identical to surra. SA tough one. A long pause and she starts ... M-A-R-I-N-A. The bell! Oh no. Down to two!

ELIMINATED: Shrey Parikh (kanin), three spellers left

We’re into the 14th round. Four spellers left standing. Shrey Parikh from California starts things off. His offering is kanin, a word meaning boiled rice came to English from Tagalog. The clock is ticking. He’s inside 30 seconds. The tension mounts. He takes a breath and starts ... K-A-N-A-N. Oh no! The horrible toll! The sixth-grader is out and we’re down to three!

Updated

Florida’s Bruhat Soma confidently spells the the word Okvik correctly. North Carolina’s Ananya Rao Prassanna is then given tennesi (TENG-uh-see), a monetary subunit of the manat (Turkmenistan). Oh boy. Tough one! Forty seconds left, then 30, then 20. She has a go. And she’s nailed it!

Faizan Zaki from Texas is given the word daena, another homonym (uh-oh), a term related to Zoroastrianism and derived from Avestan, He needs less than 30 seconds before rattling off the correct spelling. He too is through to the 14th round. The tension is smoldering!

Updated

ELIMINATED: Aditi Muthukumar (Lillooet), four spellers left

Shrey Parikh from California has spelled the word Jumano (zhoo-muh-NOH) correctly. Then it’s Colorado’s Aditi Muthukumar’s turn. Her word is Lillooet, a word of unknown origin, a Salishan people of the Fraser river valley in British Columbia. She takes a pause before starting ... L-I-L-L-O-W-E-T. Oh no. No, no, no! The bell sounds and she looks positively crestfallen. What a performance, what effort. A fifth-place finish for the 13-year-old from Colorado with a yen for Jane Austen novels.

The Florida man Bruhat Soma is back under the spotlight for his turn. The seventh grader’s word is dehnstufe, a word from German meaning a lengthened vowel grade of a nominal or verbal root or affix in Indo-European ablaut series. Nails it! Now it’s Ananya Prassanna’s turn. Her word is martaban, a large green glazed pottery jar originally made in lower Burma. She exhausts 70 of her 90 seconds for taking a crack ... and she calmly delivers! Next is Faizan Zaki, who drills the word avahi, which is a woolly lemur from Madagascar. What skill!

Into the 12th round we go. Shrey Parikh of California kicks things off on a winning note with a correct spelling of gobiesocid (go-bee-uh-SAH-sid). Colorado’s Aditi Muthukumar, working quickly but with measure and poise, correctly spells the word molysite, a mineral (FeCl3) consisting of native ferric chloride found in Vesuvian lava.

Amy Simkovitz, herself a National Spelling Bee alumna, notes during the commercial break that two of tonight’s three eliminations have been on homonyms. Pesky!

Updated

ELIMINATED: Kirsten Tiffany Santos (apophasis), five spellers left

That leaves eighth grader Kirsten Tiffany Santos, who’s given apophasis, a homonym, meaning the mention of something by claiming to not mention. A-P-O-P-H ... a long pause ... Y-S-I-S. And the dreaded bell! Oh no! We’re down to five!

Faizan Zaki is back on stage. A massive fan of the Dallas Mavericks (who are one win from the NBA finals and currently up 19 points on the Timberwolves in the second quarter), he’s riding high these days. His words seems tricky, sphenography, but he calmly rattles it off.

Next up is Charlotte’s Ananya Rao Prassanna, a poetry and literature fanatic whose favorite author is Rick Riordan. Her word is saltigrade, which means having the feet or legs adapted to leaping, usually used of spiders. She asks for all of the information. It consists of Latin elements. There’s a schwa involved but as long as she follows Latin rules she should be OK. She leaves things late, but nails the spelling with 12 seconds to go!

Tampa’s Bruhat Soma, a third-time entrant who redoubled his efforts after falling in the quarter-finals last, is back on the mic. His word is indumentum, a word from Latin meaning the entire feathery covering of a bird. He asks for all the information and receives it. And he susses out the familiar roots without trouble and coolly delivers the correct spelling.

Updated

We’re back from commercial break. Shrey Parikh from California has spelled the word grunion, a fish which probably derives its name from the Spanish word for “grunter”, correctly. Colorado’s Aditi Muthukumar from Colorado calmly drills the the word peccant, meaning guilty of a moral offense.

Updated

Ananya Rao Prassanna’s vocab word is velocipede. She pauses, takes a deep breath, another pause, then selects correctly: a lightweight wheeled vehicle propelled by the rider. The 10th round closes with Faizan Zaki (liminal) and Kirsten Tiffany Santos (modus operandi) answering correctly. We’re into the 11th stanza with six spellers still standing.

Aditi Muthukuma’s vocab word is tesseract, the four-dimensional analogue of a cube. Nails it without hesitation. Bruhat Soma’s word is sine qua non, meaning something absolutely indispensable or essential. Nails it without hesitation. Six spellers still alive as we break again for commercial.

On we go into the 10th round and Shrey Parikh, the 12-year-old from San Bernardino, California, is back on the stage. He’s tasked with answering a vocabulary question under the rejiggered format. He will only have 30 seconds to answer a multiple-choice question for the word ... jurisprudential. And he immediately nails it. This round will move quickly.

We’re back from another commercial break and Faizan Zaki is next. He’s a sixth grader from Rice Middle School in Dallas who has been part of the spelling community since he was seven years old. He previously competed in 2019 (tied for 370th) and 2023 (tied for 21st). After sussing out the information, he spells the word oosorption (oh-uh-SORP-shun) correctly.

Last to go in the opening run is Kirsten Tiffany Santos, an eighth grader from Houston who reached the finals last year and finished fifth. She to read news every day, as well as writing and composing music using her piano. Her word is plagiotropic, an adjective formed in German from Greek elements, which means having the longer axis inclined away from the vertical. And she methodically but confidently nails it! One trip through the order and we’re down from eight to six.

Updated

Ananya Rao Prassanna is next. She’s a 13-year-old seventh grader from Charlotte’s Davis Drive Middle School. Her word is morbilliform, which means resembling the eruption of measles. And she nails it!

Updated

ELIMINATED: YY Liang (immanent), six spellers left

YY Liang is next. She’s a homeschooled seventh grader, only 12 years old, from New Windsor, New York, who happens to be a nationally ranked junior tennis player whose favorite player is Roger Federer (whose one-handed backhand she’s emulated). Her word is immanent, which means indwelling. A homonym. Tough one. And she hears the dreaded ding and she’s heading home … but it’s likely we haven’t heard the last from her.

Updated

After a commercial break we’re back with 12-year-old Bruhat Soma, a seventh grader from Tampa whose favorite basketball player is LeBron James. His word is habitude, a word from Latin-derived French that means habitual disposition or mode of behavior or procedure. He calmly nails it.

Updated

Next up is Shrey Parikh, a sixth grader at Day Creek Intermediate School. The word is eustachian, which is a bony and cartilaginous tube connecting the middle ear with the nasopharynx and equalizing air pressure on both sides of the tympanic membrane. And he calmly nails it!

Aditi Muthukumar, an eighth grader from Denver’s Hulstrom K-8 is next. She nails febrifuge after asking for the definition three separate times. Nervy!

Updated

ELIMINATED: Rishabh Saha (desmotrope), seven spellers left

Next up is Rishabh Saha, a sixth grader at Cruickshank Middle School in Merced, California, where his favorite subject is desmotrope, a form of a chemical element related to another by desmotropism. He asks for all of the information and takes a crack at it with plenty of his 90-second allotment remaining. He spells it D-E-S-M-A-T-R-O-P-E. Ding! Oh dear ... we’re quickly down to seven!

Updated

It’s time! The elite eight have taken the stage, the Ion telecast is under way and we’re set to begin any moment now.

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that you can gamble on this. According to one bookmaker, tonight’s winning word is likeliest to be a noun (plus-180 odds) with fewer than 11½ letters (minus-140) and more than 3½ vowels (minus-150).

A couple of other sportsbooks have offered proposition bets on the gender of the champion, whether he or she will wear glasses, whether they will have braces, what state they’ll hail from and whether a spell-off will be necessary. (That number, by the way, is 1-800-GAMBLER.)

FLOTUS has entered the chat. An inspirational message from Dr Jill Biden, who says that she’ll be watching tonight’s finals alongside the commander-in-chief in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

The majority of entrants in the National Spelling Bee are from the US, hailing from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the territories of Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Canada, the Bahamas, Germany and Ghana are were represented this year. Texas has the largest representation with 20 national competitors. California and Ohio are next with 17 each, followed by Florida, Illinois and New York with 13 apiece.

Only 57 spellers returned from last year’s field, while 180 spellers were first-time competitors, nearly three-quarters of the crop.

Four of last year’s finalists advanced to the 2024 national competition: Sarah Fernandes (Speller No 131), tied for 10th place; Aryan Khedkar (No 111), tied for fifth; Tarini Nandakumar (No 205), finished ninth; and Shradha Rachamreddy (No 13), tied for third. Aliyah Alpert (No 4) and Kirsten Santos (No 212) were finalists in 2022. (Santos, from Houston, is back in the final group tonight.)

Rachamreddy was considered the consensus favorite to win after last year’s high finish, but was ousted amid Wednesday’s “bloodbath”.

[Rachamreddy] was eliminated on exactly the sort of “super short, tricky word” she said she concentrated on studying after misspelling “orle” last year. This year it was “varan”, a type of lizard. She added an extra “r”, and former spellers in the audience gasped at her mistake.

“I am in shock and despair,” said Dev Shah, the 2023 champion. “We all thought she was going to win,” added Charlotte Walsh, last year’s runner-up.

Some other historical bric-a-brac, via Scripps’ crack research team:

• first male champion: Frank Neuhauser, Louisville, 1925
• first female champion: Pauline Bell, Louisville, 1926
• first non-American champion: Jody-Anne Maxwell, Jamaica, 1998
• first Black champion: Jody-Anne Maxwell, Jamaica, 1998
• first Black American champion: Zaila Avant-garde, New Orleans, 2021
• most national competitions: Akash Vukoti (six), 2016, 2018-19, 2021-23
• youngest competitor: Edith Fuller, 2017, 6 years old

Updated

People magazine ran a nice exclusive today profiling the Rhode Island man thought to be the oldest living Spelling Bee champion. Meet William Cashore, who was 14 years old and a student at Malvern Prep in suburban Philadelphia when he won the 27th annual competition on 30 May 1954. His winning word: transept, which refers to part of a cruciform church that crosses at right angles to the greatest length between the nave and the apse or choir.

“I knew that word but had never been asked to spell it,” he says, adding how growing up his parents would give him lists of words to memorize.

“But I knew right away what it was. I spelled that, and I just kept telling myself to stay as calm as possible because one way you make a mistake in a competition is by jumping in and trying to spell the word too fast,” he continues.

After reciting the word, the announcer raised his hand. “He said, ‘Winner,’ and I heard my mother yelling ‘Woo!’ “ Cashore shares.

“At that moment, I said, ‘Boy, my parents are going to like this,’ “ he adds. “It’s one of my fondest memories, but I didn’t let it get in the way of anything else that seemed important.”

Following his win, Cashore participated in a celebratory tour with a few of the other contestants. He met Vice President Richard Nixon, was a guest on the Ed Sullivan Show and was even a contestant on the TV quiz show I’ve Got a Secret.

After that, he traveled home, where his town threw him a small parade. He took home with him his prizes: a 25-volume Encyclopedia Britannica, a trophy and a $500 cash prize.

“I remember that life didn’t change very much, but when I went to high school, everybody kidded me by calling me ‘Speller.’ And it wasn’t mean-spirited or anything, it was just a convenient nickname,” he says.

The 84-year-old retired neonatologist, a longtime professor at Brown University’s medical school, is celebrating the 70th anniversary of his banner win (to the date, remarkably) tonight.

Updated

Incredibly, this marks the 96th year of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. The first was staged in 1925 with just nine contestants, with Kentucky’s Frank Neuhauser taking home the title by correctly spelling gladiolus, a flower he had raised as a boy. He took home $500 in gold pieces for his trouble. Other tricky championship-winning words down the years include esquamulose (1962), xanthosis (1995), succedaneum (2001) and appoggiatura (2005).

Ever wonder how you’d match up against the champions of the past. Here’s your chance. Take our quiz to see if you can spell a sampling of the championship-winning words from previous bees.

There’s plenty at stake for the eight spellers who have made it this far. The last girl or boy standing will receive: a $50,000 cash prize, a commemorative medal and the Scripps Cup trophy (from Scripps); $2,500 cash and a reference library (from Merriam-Webster); a one-year subscription to Britannica Online Premium (from Encyclopædia Britannica), in addition to various other academic bits and bobs.

The runner-up will receive $25,000, with cash prizes for third ($15,000), fourth ($10,000), fifth ($5,000) and sixth places ($2,500). The seventh- and eighth-place finishers will go home with a cool $2,000 apiece. Additionally, all eight finalists will be awarded commemorative medals.

If two or more spellers tie for first, each will receive $50,000. That’s not a remote possibility, at least not anymore. When Sriram J Hathwar and Ansun Sujoe shared the title in 2014, it was the first time the National Spelling Bee had co-champions since 1962. Then Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam fought to a memorable stalemate in 2015, prompting officials to install rule changes – a longer championship round with more difficult words – in an effort to ensure singular champions moving forward, only for Jairam Hathwar and Nihar Janga to fight to a third straight tie in 2016. Then, in 2019, an unprecedented eight spellers tied for the title when organizers ran out of words considered challenging enough for the field. That prompted a major overhaul for 2021 including the addition of vocabulary questions and a lightning-round tiebreaker.

Updated

Why isn't the Spelling Bee on ESPN anymore?

One hour until showtime and a number of readers have already emailed with the same question: Why isn’t the Spelling Bee on ESPN anymore? This marks the third year since the sports cabler’s agreement with the EW Scripps Company expired and the Ohio-based media firm decided to move the production in-house to Ion Television, one of the national broadcast networks it owns. At the time of the move, organizers claimed the timing of the NBA finals created problematic scheduling and resource conflicts with ESPN, which had carried it for 27 straight years (starting in 1994) and where it developed something of a cult following.

It’s been a bit of a downer for longtime fans of ESPN’s consistently robust coverage, which in later years included a special Play-Along simulcast on ESPN3 that featured a second-screen, multiple-choice version allowing viewers to compete along with the spellers.

Some have complained Ion is more difficult to find, but the ratings seem to be trending in the right direction. Last year’s finals drew the highest ratings since 2012 with 6.1m viewers, a 30% increase from its 2022 debut on the network. Besides, you’re going to want to find Ion if watching Caitlin Clark and co matters to you.

Updated

The Spelling Bee has always been one of the more photogenic events on the US sports calendar. This year has been no exception. Here’s a look at some of the best shots from the 2024 contest (so far).

A look at tonight’s finalists

Well, here we are. It’s all happening. The championship finals of the 96th annual Scripps National Spelling Bee are upon us. The eyes of the orthographic world are trained on the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, where spelling’s biggest night is a little more than an hour away from popping off. (Not like there’s any other news happening inside the beltway today.)

More than 11m students, ranging in age from six to 15, participated in this year’s competition at one stage or another. Of those, 245 earned a trip to (just outside) the nation’s capital by winning spelling bees organized by their local sponsors, typically newspapers, universities or non-profits. All roads have led to tonight: the Super Bowl for smart kids. And it all gets started at 8pm ET.

How to watch

All times Eastern.

Tue 28 May Preliminaries 8am to 7.40pm (ION Plus, spellingbee.com)

Wed 29 May Quarter-finals 8am to 12.45pm (ION Plus, spellingbee.com)

Wed 29 May Semi-finals 2.30pm to 6.30pm (ION Plus, spellingbee.com)

Thu 30 May Finals 8pm to 10pm (ION)

That elite field of invitees was narrowed down to 148 during Tuesday’s preliminary rounds, then further trimmed to eight during Wednesday’s rigorous quarter-finals and semi-finals, which one parent described as a “bloodbath”.

This octet of survivors represents the best of the best. Here’s who they are.

Speller No 18, Rishabh Saha
Sponsor: SNSB Region One Bee (Merced, California)
Age 14, 8th grade
School: Herbert H Cruickshank Middle School
Fun fact: Rishabh has visited 59 of the 63 US National Parks

Speller No 22, Shrey Parikh
Sponsor: San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools (San Bernardino, California)
Age 12, 6th grade
School: Day Creek Intermediate School
Fun fact: When Shrey was 7 years old, he wrote a book and donated all the proceeds to wildlife conservancy

Speller No 31, Aditi Muthukuma
Sponsor: The Denver Post (Denver, Colorado)
Age 13, 8th grade
School: Hulstrom K-8
Fun fact: Aditi was recognized as a 2024 National Junior Honor Society Outstanding Achievement Award winner

Speller No 47, Bruhat Soma
Sponsor: Rays Baseball Foundation and Rowdies Soccer Fund (St Petersburg, Florida)
Age 12, 7th grade
School: Turner/Bartels K-8 School
Fun fact: Bruhat was one of the top few in the nation chosen to participate in traditional memory sloka performance

Speller No 145, YY Liang
Sponsor: ScholarSkills for STARS (New Windsor, New York)
Age 12, 7th grade
School: Homeschool
Fun fact: YY is learning shooting from nine-time world champion Eric Grauffel

Speller No 155, Ananya Rao Prassanna
Sponsor: Carolina Panthers (Charlotte, North Carolina)
Age 13, 7th grade
School: Davis Drive Middle School
Fun fact: Ananya likes to make word play jokes and songs to remember the word

Speller No 207, Faizan Zaki
Sponsor: Dallas Sports Commission (Dallas, Texas)
Age 12, 6th grade
School: Rice Middle School
Fun fact: Faizan has a twin sister, Zara, who also made it to the district spelling bee this year

Speller No 212, Kirsten Tiffany Santos
Sponsor: Houston Community College (Houston, Texas)
Age 13, 8th grade
School: International Leadership of Texas Katy K-8
Fun fact: Kirsten is the first chair violinist of her school orchestra

Updated

Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s Scott Remer’s comment on why the National Spelling Bee is more important than ever in the AI age.

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