US National Spelling Bee Contest

Bruhat Soma, a 12-year-old Indian-American seventh-grade student from Florida, has won the Scripps National Spelling Bee after he spelt 29 words correctly in the tiebreaker, maintaining the dominance of the children from the small ethnic community in the prestigious competition. Bruhat emerged victorious in the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday, earning more than USD 50,000 in cash and other prizes. This year's contest came down to a tiebreaker in which Bruhat spelt 29 words correctly in 90 seconds, beating Faizan Zaki, who managed to correctly spell 20 words in the lightning round. His championship word was abseil, which is defined as descent in mountaineering by means of a rope looped over a projection above. Bruhat went first in the tiebreaker, and after he got through 30 words, it appeared he would be impossible to beat. Faizan's pace was more uneven at the outset. He attempted 25 words but flubbed four of them. Bruhat Soma rules the word! The Champion of the 2024 Scri

When Balu Natarajan became the first Indian American champion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 1985, a headline on an Associated Press article read, Immigrants' son wins National Spelling Bee, with the first paragraph noting the champion speaks his parents' native Indian language at home. Those details would hardly be newsworthy today after a quarter-century of Indian American spelling champs, most of them the offspring of parents who arrived in the United States on student or work visas. This year's bee is scheduled to begin Tuesday at a convention centre outside Washington and, as usual, many of the expected contenders are Indian American, including Shradha Rachamreddy, Aryan Khedkar, Bruhat Soma and Ishika Varipilli. Nearly 70 per cent of Indian-born US residents arrived after 2000, according to census data, and that dovetails with the surge in Indian American spelling bee champions. There were two Indian American Scripps winners before 1999. Of the 34 since, 28 have been

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Indian American contestants have dominated the spelling bee in the US, starting with Balu Natarajan' win in 1985

Logan, who took home the USD 50,000 cash prize and Scripps Cup trophy on top of awards from Merriam-Webster and Encyclopedia Britannica, spelled 21 out of 26 words correctly

The competition, broadcast nationally, kicked off on Tuesday with its biggest field ever

To state a sporting analogy, beating an Indian-American kid at the Scripps National Spelling Bee is like thwarting Rafael Nadal at the French Open

Criticism of the anchor Camerota's comment has been circulating on social media

Indian-American contestants held their steely nerves for 20 rounds until Ananya snaffled the prize

Ananya is the 13th consecutive Indian-American to win the bee