National Spelling Bee victor describes 'really amazing' win

Ananya Vinay
Ananya Vinay is the winner of the 90th Scripps National Spelling Bee
Author

03 June, 2017

Competitors age 6 to 15 emerged from early spelling bees involving more than 11 million youths from all 50 USA states, US territories from Puerto Rico to Guam, and several countries, from Jamaica to Japan.

Luckily, Vinay had a better performance on Thursday night - taking the opportunity to strike when opponent Rohan Rajeev flubbed the Scandinavian-derived word, "Marram" (beach grass) and taking the crown by successfully spelling "Marocain" (a type of dress fabric of ribbed crepe) to win the 90th annual bee. After three straight years of ties, the tiebreaker round had been introduced this year.

As the victor Ananya, a 12-year-old sixth-grader from Fresno, Calif., takes home $40,000 in cash, a $2,500 savings bond and a large collection of reference books.

"It's like a dream come true, I'm so happy right now". "I think she learned from that and she consciously worked on it, how you shouldn't panic, just focus on the word".

Being from California, Ananya is naturally a Golden State Warriors fan. She says she knew them all.

Ananya Vinay
Ananya Vinay

Her 7-year-old brother, Achuth, was seated in the stands wearing a Warriors shirt.

Ananya didn't seem at all anxious about the difficulty of the words and later said: "I knew them all".

"You can find words in interesting places", she said.

Ananya's win marks the first time since 2013 that a single victor has won. She has two more years of eligibility.

Despite English not being mother tongue to anyone of Indian origin, it is a moment of pride to recount that kids from our home ground are outshining children who are native to the language. "She worked hard for it". The field was narrowed to 40 finalists on Wednesday, based upon two oral rounds of spelling and the results of a written spelling and vocabulary test.


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