Two Indian American students have jointly won the 2015 Scripps National Spelling Bee competition successfully negotiating the words “scherenschnitte” and “nunatak” in a nail-biting final.
Vanya Shivashankar, 13, of Olathe, Kansas, and Gokul Venkatachalam, 14, of Chesterfield, Missouri, were declared co-champions last week.
Vanya correctly spelt "scherenschnitte" meaning the art of cutting paper into decorative designs -- and Gokul did likewise with "nunatak" -- a hill or mountain completely surrounded by glacial ice.
In this year's national championship, 285 spellers competed for the title.
Shivashankar and Venkatachalam put both their hands on the trophy and thrust it into the air on Thursday, 28 May evening -- after spelling word after word that few people could even hope to pronounce correctly.
“This is the second year in a row that the final has yielded co-champions,” Scripps National Spelling Bee said on its website.
“Last year was the first time in 52 years that two people had shared the trophy, and 2015 marks the first time in the bee’s 90-year history that there have ever been co-champions two years in a row. This is only the fifth tie ever.”
Among the words the two spelled on their way to the title were cypseline, urgrund. filicite, myrmotherine, sprachgefuhl, zimocca, hippocrepiform, nixtamal, paroemiology, scacchite, pipsissewa, bruxellois, and pyrrhuloxia.
As the the ticker tape rained down on the stage, the two young Indian Americans hugged each other.
“This is a dream come true. I can’t believe I’m up here,” Shivashankar said. But with nine bee appearances between them, it’s pretty easy to imagine that something this fitting would happen.
Shivshankar, an eighth grader at California Trail Middle School, has competed in the national bee four other times. Last year, she tied for 13th place.
Her older sister, Kavya, was the 2009 National Spelling Bee champion.
Venkatachalam, an eighth grader at Parkway West School, came in third place in last year's competition.
After his victory, he said the competition was a culmination of six years of hard work.
"I've dealt with defeat and success," he said during the live broadcast. "I'm finally happy to have success."