Twelve-year-old Indian-American seventh-grader Bruhat Soma of Florida has won the Scripps National Spelling Bee. He did so by properly spelling twenty-nine words in the tiebreaker, continuing the trend of young people from small ethnic communities winning the famous competition.
On Thursday, Bruhat won the Scripps National Spelling Bee, taking home more than $50,000 in cash and additional rewards.
The competition this year came down to a tiebreaker, where Bruhat topped Faizan Zaki, who properly spelled 20 words in the lightning round, by successfully spelling 29 words in 90 seconds.
“Abseil,” which means “descent in mountaineering by means of a rope looped over a projection above,” was his championship word. In the tiebreaker, Bruhat started first, and it looked like he would be hard to defeat after 30 words. At first, Faizan’s pace was more irregular. He made 25 attempts at words, mispronouncing four of them.
“Bruhat Soma is the world’s ruler! The Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion of 2024! The organizers declared, “The boy with the incredible memory doesn’t miss a word all week and wins the Scripps Cup.”
“Bruhat Soma broke the record set by Harini Logan in 2022 by properly spelling 29 of the 30 words that were attempted in order to win the coveted champion title. In the first spell-off of the competition, Logan successfully spelled 22 out of 26 words, according to the organisers.
“As the competition advanced, it became evident that our two remaining spellers, Faizan and Bruhat, arrived tonight prepared to demolish the dictionary,” stated Corrie Loeffler, the Bee’s executive director.
They were a formidable combo. In the last moments of the tournament, bee organizers initiated the spell-off, providing these outstanding spellers with one additional chance to demonstrate their abilities, according to Loeffler.
While the other speller was isolated, the two final spellers each had 90 seconds to spell as many words as they could from an established list of terms.
The E W Scripps Company’s president and CEO, Adam Symson, gave Bruhat the championship trophy.
“Bruhat impressed with his display of knowledge and composure at just 12 years old,” Symson stated.
Bruhat was competing in the Scripps National Spelling Bee for the third time. In 2022, he tied for 163rd place, and in 2023, he tied for 74th.
Zaki was given USD 25,000 and is from Allen, Texas.
After finishing tied for third in the competition, Shrey Parikh of Rancho Cucamonga, California, was awarded USD 12,500.
Ananya Prassanna, who came in third place overall and won USD 12,500, is from Apex, North Carolina.
Bruhat, who is coached by 16-year-old former speller Sam Evans, placed tied for 163rd in 2022 and 74th in 2023 in their prior competitions. He was a complete person with a wide range of hobbies and interests who had previously won the Words of Wisdom Bee and SpellPundit Bee before traveling to a prominent competition in a Maryland suburb of Washington, DC.
Srinivas Soma, Bruhat’s father, is originally from Nalgonda, Telangana.
Six finalists made it to the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee: California’s Rishabh Saha, 14, and Shrey Parikh, 12, Aditi Muthukumar, 13, and North Carolina’s Ananya Rao Prassanna, 13, were Indian-Americans.
Last year, Dev Shah, an Indian-American, won the spelling bee by accurately spelling “psammophile.” The championship was won by Harini Logan in 2022.
Renowned in 1925, the Scripps National Spelling Bee is the largest and most established educational initiative in the country. Spellers spend months practicing for this event since it is as much a high-profile, high-pressure endurance challenge as it is a technical spelling bee.
2020 saw the cancellation of The Bee because to the coronavirus a pandemic In 2019, there were eight co-champions, seven of whom were American Indians. Since 1999, 29 Indian-Americans have won the competition as champions.
There were 245 spellers in total who came to compete this year; 65 of them had already placed first in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Up to 24 spellers, the majority of whom were Indian Americans, had relatives who had taken part in 40 Scripps National Spelling Bees in total.
Four 2023 finalists—Sarah Fernandes, who tied for tenth place; Aryan Khedkar, who tied for fifth; Tarini Nandakumar, who finished ninth; and Shradha Rachamreddy, who tied for third—moved on to the national competition in 2024.
In 2022, Kirsten Santos and Aliyah Alpert were finalists. Acash Vukoti, an Indian American, qualified for a record six finals in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2018, 2019, and 2021.
