It’s a T-I-E: For the second year in a row, the Scripps National Spelling Bee crowned two champions.
Vanya Shivashankar, 13, of Olathe, Kansas, and Gokul Venkatachalam, 14, of Chesterfield, Missouri, battled it out through 20 rounds Thursday night, with Shivashankar tackling words like "thamakau," "hippocrepiform," and "scherenschnitte" and Venkatachalam taking on "pipsissewa," "pyrrhyloxia," and "sprachgefühl." It all came down to "nunatak" — after Venkatachalam spelled it correctly, the pair were named co-champions, with each one walking away with $35,000, a $2,500 U.S. savings bond, and a complete reference library.
Both were competition veterans — it was Shivashankar's fifth year, Venkatachalam's fourth — who have long had their eyes on the prize. "I saw the past two champions and I wanted to do the same and I wanted to get the same," Venkatachalam told USA Today. "I just put in the work." Shivashankar — whose sister, Kavya, won the 2009 bee — dedicated her win to her grandmother, who died in 2013. "All she really wanted was her grandkids to do so well and I hope I make her happy with this," she said.
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