Indian-American wins spelling bee trophy

OXON HILL, Maryland: A 14-year-old daughter of Indian immigrants clinched the 85th Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday by correctly spelling an obscure French word for ambush, snare or trap.
“G-U-E-T-A-P-E-N-S,” said Snighda Nandipati, an eighth-grade student from San Diego, California, to become the fifth American youngster of south Asian origin to win the venerable competition in as many consecutive years. “I knew it. I’d seen it before,” Nandipati, the daughter of a software consultant, confided afterward as she collected the spelling bee’s coveted gold cup and $30,000, which she plans to put aside for university.
As for what it’s like to win, after going head-to-head for three rounds with runner-up Stuti Mishra, also 14, of Orlando, Florida, Nandipati — sporting glasses and orthodontic braces — simply replied: “It’s a miracle.” Third place went to Arvind V. Mahankali, 12, a New Yorker who was thrown for a loop by a word he’d never heard before — schvonoma, a form of nerve tumor. He vowed to study harder and return next year. Some 278 youngsters took part in this year’s three-day National Spelling Bee at a resort outside Washington, out of more than 11 million who competed in events at some level in the United States and several countries overseas.
This year featured the youngest-ever competitor, six-year-old Lori Anne Madison, of Woodbridge, Virginia, who suffered elimination Wednesday when she misspelled ingluvies, a noun that means the crop or craw of birds.
“I knew the word. It was just too bad that I misspelled the word,” the precocious blonde crowd-pleaser — one of 28 home-schooled contestants this year — told reporters earlier in the day.
Sponsored by the Scripps media group, this year’s National Spelling Bee also included competitors from as far afield as the Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. Jamaica’s Gifton Samuel Wright, one of Thursday’s nine finalists, won a 30-second standing ovation after he faltered on the word harengiform, an adjective that means herring-shaped. Organizers announced Tuesday that plans are afoot for a global spelling bee as early as December 2013, reflecting what they called “a fast-growing worldwide passion for the English language.
FROM: AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE