Scripps National Spelling Bee Decided by Lightning Round

Shrey Parikh felt the pressure of arriving at the Scripps National Spelling Bee as a favorite, but his confidence showed every time he got a word he knew. And when it all came down to a lightning-round tiebreaker against Ishaan Gupta, Shrey left no doubt. Shrey turned a tense, high-quality final into a blowout Thursday night, racing through the 90-second "spell-off" and getting 32 words right to be crowned the best young speller in the English language, the AP reports. Ishaan spelled 25 words correctly in the tiebreaker. A 14-year-old from Rancho Cucamonga, California, Shrey finished third in 2024 but lost his school bee last year when he was battling a fever. He has dominated the bee circuit since, winning several online competitions against many of the same kids he outlasted this week in the nation's capital. His winning haul includes a custom trophy and $52,500 in cash.

Ishaan, a 12-year-old seventh-grader from Jersey City, New Jersey, was a semifinalist last year, outperformed some veteran spellers in the finals, and has another year of eligibility left. Sarv Dharavane, a 12-year-old sixth-grader from Dunwoody, Georgia, finished third for the second consecutive year and has two more years to improve that placement. For the first time in the bee's history, second- and third-place finishers from the same year have gone on to win. Faizan Zaki won last year, and two years ago he was the runner-up, just ahead of Shrey, his close friend.

Shrey can credit his victory to intense preparation. He had three coaches: Sam Evans, who has tutored each of the past three champions; Sohum Sukhatankar, a co-champion himself in 2019; and Vijaya Ganesh, a longtime coach and the mother of a former spellers. He competed nonstop against other top spellers, pored through advanced study guides, and tried to eliminate the variables that had led to the few unexpected exits of his long spelling career. Former spellers, coaches, and other observers described this group of finalists as unusually strong, and they showed off their skills early by going 18 for 18 at the start, breezing through the first spelling and vocabulary rounds. Aiden Meng of Orinda, California, ended that streak when he was tripped up by "catometope" to start the second spelling round.