Bruhat Soma, a class 7 Indian student in Florida, USA, has won the Scripps National Spelling Bee title by correctly spelling 329 words in a tiebreaker. Bruhat Soma won the competition and won US $ 50,000 and other prizes. Children dominated the competition.
This year's Scripps National Spelling Contest went to a tiebreaker. Bruhat spelled 29 words correctly in 90 seconds to beat Faizan Zaki, who spelled 20 words correctly in the Lightning Round. Bruhat's championship word was “absail,” which means “to descend a mountain by rope on an upward projection.” Bruhat finished first in the tiebreaker.
Faizan, who finished second, had a more uneven pace at the start. Faizan spelled 25 words but got four of them wrong. Bruhat Soma was the champion of the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee, the organisers said. They praised Bruhat, saying he is a man with an incredible memory. “Bruhat Soma won the coveted champion title by correctly spelling 29 out of 30 words, breaking the spell-off record set by Harini Logan in 2022,” the organisers said.
Let us tell you that during the first spell-off of the competition, Logan correctly spelled 22 out of 26 words. Two spellers. A spell-off was activated in the final minutes of the competition, giving the brilliant spellers a chance to show what they can do.
The two final spellers had 90 seconds to spell as many words as possible from a predetermined list of words. Simson, the company's chairman and CEO, presented the championship trophy to Bruhat. The CEO said Bruhat impressed the 12-year-old with his display of knowledge and poise. This was Bruhat's third time participating in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. He finished 74th in 2023 and 163rd in 2022.
Five of the 8 finalists in the competition were Indian-Americans
There were eight finalists in the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Out of these eight finalists, five finalists were Indian-Americans. These include Rishabh Saha from California, Shree Parikh, Aditi Muthukumar from Colorado and Ananya Rao Prasanna from North Carolina.