June 1, 2015
Spelling Bee
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 13
Toughest words aren’t tough enough for two spelling bee champs
By Ben Nuckols
The Associated Press
XON HILL, Md. — For the second straight year,
the Scripps National Spelling Bee ended with
co-champions each holding onto one side of the
golden trophy while they were showered with confetti.
Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam were
the last two standing after exhausting the 25 words
reserved for the final three spellers without stumbling.
Before last year, there hadn’t been a tie since 1962.
No one was surprised to see Vanya and Gokul duelling
for the title. They came in with high expectations —
Vanya, the longtime darling of the bee, a five-time
competitor and the sister of the 2009 champion; and
Gokul, who last year had the trophy nearly in his grasp.
But the tie shocked Paige Kimble, the bee’s executive
director and the 1981 champion, who had recently
predicted that another half-century would go by before the
bee would crown two winners. As impressive as Gokul and
Vanya were, she couldn’t believe they’d make it through.
“The most surprising words trip spellers up,” Kimble
said. “I thought something was going to surprise us here.
But it never happened.”
Vanya, 13, of Olathe, Kansas, was the picture of poise,
smiling and nodding when she got a word she knew
instantly — which was nearly every time. Her final word:
“scherenschnitte,” which means the art of cutting paper
into decorative designs.
Then it was Gokul’s turn. The 14-year-old from
Chesterfield, Missouri, was told that one of two things
would happen. He could get the word right and be a
co-champion. Or he could get it wrong and Vanya would
win.
“I wasn’t nervous,” he said.
The word: “nunatak.” Gokul didn’t even bother to ask
the definition before spelling it. For the record, it means a
hill or mountain completely surrounded by glacial ice.
“I knew it right away,” he said. “I didn’t want to keep
everyone waiting.”
Roughly 11 million spellers entered local bees, and 285
made it to the national bee, which is held at a convention
center outside Washington and televised by ESPN. The
ten finalists included several other bee veterans and
crowd favorites.
One by one, they dropped. Third-place finisher Cole
Shafer-Ray of Norman, Oklahoma, stumbled on his first
championship-level word.
That left 18 words for Vanya and Gokul before the final
two: bouquetière, caudillismo, thamakau, scytale,
tantieme, cypseline, urgrund, filicite, myrmotherine,
sprachgefuhl, zimocca, nixtamal, hippocrepiform,
paroemiology, scacchite, pipsissewa, Bruxellois, and
pyrrhuloxia.
Vanya appeared to struggle only with the Fijian-
derived “thamakau,” which is a type of outrigger canoe.
Gokul smirked and the crowd groaned when he got the
German-derived “sprachgefuhl,” which means sensitivity
to or conformance with the established usage of a
language. But he knew it.
The former champions in the crowd were left to marvel
at how far the bee has come, even in the past decade.
Vanya is the first sibling of a past champion to win, but
Kavya, now a student at Columbia University, said Vanya
is a superior speller.
“I’m so, so proud and in awe of my sister,” Kavya said.
“Every year, they get better and better,” said Anamika
Veeramani, who won in 2010 and is now a rising
sophomore at Yale. “One thing that kind of surprised me
was how often they were asking for roots. They never did
that when I was competing.”
Like many spellers, Vanya went through a routine: Ask
for the definition and the language of origin. Confirm all
the roots you can. Pretend to write the word down before
spelling.
Gokul didn’t ask many questions. He chugged through
the letters like he had dinner plans.
Underneath his blue-and-white button-down shirt,
Gokul wore the jersey of his idol, basketball star LeBron
James. He hopes to attend Stanford and become an
entrepreneur or stockbroker, but his immediate plans are
to watch James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA
O
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SENSATIONAL SPELLERS. Thirteen-year-old Vanya Shivashankar, left photo, second from left, and 14-year-old Gokul Venkatachalam, right,
are greeted onstage by their families as co-champions after winning the finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Oxon Hill, Maryland. In the photo
on the right, Vanya, left, hugs her older sister, Kavya, the 2009 Spelling Bee champion. Before last year, there hadn’t been a tie since 1962. (AP Photos/
Andrew Harnik)
finals.
cash and prizes, and while they held up the trophy
Vanya, an aspiring cardiac surgeon who dedicated her together as they were being showered with confetti, each
victory to her late grandmother, hopes to spend more time will get one to take home.
pursuing another passion, acting. She’s also trying to talk
The winners don’t have to worry about spelling
her family into taking a Caribbean cruise this summer.
anymore. But Kimble is left to ponder a future when the
“It’s definitely going to be weird not doing spelling in toughest words still aren’t tough enough.
high school,” she said.
“I think it’s time to consider that the bee may be enter-
The last 10 winners of the bee, and 14 of the past 18, ing a new era where the level of competition is so intense
have been Indian Americans, a run of dominance that that we need to entertain this as a possibility every year,”
began in 1999 with Nupur Lala’s victory, which was later she said. “I think the popularity of the event drives up the
featured in the documentary Spellbound.
competitive level and I think that’s a good thing.”
Vanya and Gokul each will receive more than $37,000 in
AP freelancer Meredith Somers contributed to this report.