National spelling bee ends in a tie for third consecutive year

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — For the third year in a row, the Scripps National Spelling Bee has ended with two champions.

Nihar Janga, 11, of Austin, Texas, and Jairam Hathwar, 13, of Painted Post, N.Y., were declared co-champions Thursday night after fighting to a draw during 39 rounds of competition.

“It was just insane,” Jairam said as he and Nihar triumphantly hoisted the golden winner’s cup into the air.

“I’m just speechless,” Nihar said. “I’m only in the fifth grade.”

Jairam’s final word in the competition was “Feldenkrais,” a trademark that refers to a system of aided body movements.

Nihar stayed in the competition by correctly spelling “gesellschaft,” which refers to a type of social relationship.

Twice, it looked as if Jairam would be eliminated, after he misspelled “drahthaar,” a breed of dog, and “mischsprache,” a language. But Nihar missed his follow-up words, which put Jairam back in contention.

The spellers will take home $40,000 in cash and other prizes.

The bee changed the rules this year to avoid what exactly what happened — a marathon championship round. Words given to finalists didn't come from a 25-word list predetermined by spelling officials, Paige Kimble, the bee's executive director, said. Instead, organizers had the option of using an expanded list of words from anywhere in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. Kimble called it “raising the standard.” But it didn't work.

Both Jairam and Nihar said they knew some of the words they were given and figured out the spelling of the rest.

Jairam is the younger brother of 2014 co-champion, Sriram Hathwar. He said the best advice he got from his brother was not to get too agitated if he was given a word he didn’t know. He plans on saving his winnings to pay for college.

Ten contestants made it to the finals and competed for the title of national champion before a live television audience. The finals were broadcast on ESPN.

The bee began Tuesday with 284 contestants but was pared to 45 Wednesday evening, after a written test and two rounds of onstage spelling.

Can you spell these often misspelled words?

By Thursday afternoon, the field had been further narrowed to the 10 finalists, who came from California, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York and Texas.

Five finalists made a return trip to the bee, which took place at Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, just outside of Washington.

Mitchell Robson had a simple request as he nervously walked to the microphone Round 8 Thursday night.

“You need to give me a word I know — please,” the 14-year-old from Marblehead, Mass. Pleaded.

“I’ll try to work with you,” pronouncer Jacques Bailly joked.

Maybe it was karma, or maybe his plea actually worked. Whatever the explanation, Mitchell had no trouble spelling “esquisse,” which refers to a first, usually rough sketch. The crowd cheered as he returned to his seat.

Ranking the 8 best Spelling Bee moments of all time

These spellers have S-W-A-G on stage

But Robson’s victory was short-lived. A few minutes later, in Round 9, he misspelled “Wehrmacht” – which referred to the unified forces of Nazi Germany – and was eliminated from the competition.

Cooper Komatsu of Los Angeles was clearly nervous when it came his time to spell. He fidgeted. He stalled. But he conquered. He easily spelled “myoclonus,” which means an irregular, involuntary muscle contraction.

From “bailliage,” which refers to the authority of a medieval officer, to “kakiemon,” which is a Japanese decorated porcelain, spellers easily mastered a number of foreign tongue-twisters.

But Jashun Paluru, 11, of West Lafayette, Ind., was eliminated after stumbling over “vasopressin,” a hormone that increases blood pressure.

Jashun asked if there were any alternate pronunciations. There were four. He asked for the part of speech: noun. He asked for all the pronunciations and the definition again before giving it his best shot: “v-a-s-o-p-r-e-s-i-n.”

The dreaded sound of the bell signaled his error.

The problem was that the word comes from a trademark, meaning Jashun couldn’t get help from rules that apply to other languages from which many English words are derived.

“It doesn’t follow any patterns,” Jashun explained after receiving a standing ovation from the crowd.

The original 284 spellers ranged in age from 6 to 14 and were almost evenly divided among boys (143) and girls (141). They hailed from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as the Bahamas, Canada, Europe, Ghana, Guam, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, South Korea and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

For the first time, competitors included a first-grader — 6-year-old Akash Vukoti of San Angelo, Texas.

7 things you didn't know about the National Spelling Bee

Akash aced the spelling of "inviscate" in Round 2 on Wednesday — the word means to encase in a sticky substance. But he stumbled in Round 3 on "bacteriolytic," which refers to the destruction or dissolution of bacteria.

Last year’s winners were Vanya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kansas, and Gokul Venkatachalam of Chesterfield, Mo. The two battled through 20 tense, error-free rounds.

Contributing: Maureen Groppe, Brian Tumulty, USA TODAY