One Indian American beats another to win US Spelling Bee Contest

One Indian American beats another to win US Spelling Bee Contest

One Indian-American beats another to win US National Spelling Bee Contest

USA: Indian kids are smart not only in India but across the globe- and to prove it, once again it is an Indian-American who has won the popular Scripps National Spelling Bee contest which is held annually in USA. Twelve-year-old Indian-American girl Ananya Vinay has won the Scripps National Spelling Bee, bagging a $40,000 cash prize after successfully spelling the word “marocain”. She became the 13th consecutive Indian-American to win the contest.

She is the 18th of the past 22 winners with Indian heritage. The trend began in 1999 with Nupur Lala’s victory. Ananya won the competition after several rounds against Rohan Rajeev, another Indian-American student. The two were the last two standing of the initial 291 spellers. Beating 14-year-old Rohan Rajeev, 12-year-old Ananya Vinay won the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which sees more than 11 million children from all 50 US states, US territories, and other countries. This happened while US President Donald Trump was cribbing about how the Paris Agreement favours India and is “unfair” towards the US.

A class six student from Fresno, California, Ananya took home a $40,000 cash prize after competing for 12 hours and spelling 35 words correctly. Ananya and Rohan were the last two standing of the initial 291 spellers. Rohan, a resident of Oklahoma, lost to Ananya after misspelling “marram”. Ananya’s winning word was “marocain”. “Congratulations to our 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion, Ananya Vinay. What a fantastic performance!,” the National Spelling Bees official account tweeted. “She played to win and win she did. Ananya Vinay takes home the 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion title and trophy,” it said.

“It’s like a dream come true, I’m so happy right now. I just focused on my word and tried to spell it right,” said Ananya upon receiving the winners trophy. In a post-victory interview, Ananya told reporters she was able to recognize one of the final words as it had been mentioned in her social studies book.

THE INDIA-ORIGIN WINNER IN AMERICA

Ananya is the 13th consecutive Indian-American winner of the competition and the 18th of the past 22 winners with Indian heritage, a run that began in 1999 with Nupur Lala’s victory, which was featured in the documentary “Spellbound.” Ananya honed her skill in highly competitive national bees that are limited to Indian-Americans, the North South Foundation and the South Asian Spelling Bee, although she did not win either. Ananya’s victory broke the Bees three-year streak of ending in a tie. She wins USD 40,000 in cash, a trophy and other prizes, the report said.

Asked about her competitor, Rohan, Ananya said, “It was interesting to go back and forth for so many rounds”. The annual contest opened on Tuesday with a record 291 spellers from across the country and the globe. The field was narrowed to 40 finalists on Wednesday, based upon two oral rounds of spelling and the results of a written spelling and vocabulary test. By yesterday afternoon, just 15 spellers were still standing and went on to compete for the championship whose final rounds were broadcast live.

The National Bee is a high-profile, high-pressure endurance test as much as a nerd spelling match and spellers spend months preparing for it. The stress of competing against the dictionary was etched on many spellers faces as they took their turn at the microphone and in front of the television cameras. “I’m pretty nervous,” Nikhil Lahiri, 14, of Painted Post, NY, confessed from the stage, just seconds before correctly spelling “outarde”, which is a Canadian goose.

This years 291 spellers represented all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and the Department of Defense Schools in Europe. 11 came from the Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan and South Korea.

With inputs from PTI/USA Today