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Shrey Parikh felt his body shake from nerves and doubts every time he walked to the microphone at theScripps National Spelling Bee, the final test of a six-year competitive spelling career marked by triumph and heartbreak that he knew could end at any moment.
Then he listened to pronouncer Jacques Bailly, and his dour body language vanished as he nodded vigorously, his tell that, yes, he knew the words he was asked to spell. All of them.
“Once I get the word,” Shrey said, “I’m not really nervous anymore, because then it’s all in my control.”
Shrey arrived as a favorite and walked away as a National Spelling Bee champion Thursday night, outlasting a deep and experienced group of finalists and beating Ishaan Gupta in a lightning-round tiebreaker that looked like it was over as soon as Shrey raced through his first word.
His final tally: 32 words spelled correctly in 90 seconds, a record for the shootout-style finish that was first used in 2022.
“I was counting and I’m like, OK, this is more than 30,” said Shrey’s mother, Khyati Mehta. “And at that point, I’m like, ‘I think this is it.’”
Ishaan battled gamely, getting 25 words right during the spell-off, but he was more deliberate and hesitant from the start. The competitors stood next to each other as Scripps officials announced what everyone in a lively crowd at Constitution Hall already knew, and Shrey turned and shook Ishaan’s hand.
After Sarv Dharavane bowed out in third place for the second consecutive year, Shrey and Ishaan had only one conventional round before the buzzer for the spell-off was placed on the stage.
Ishaan was escorted away — the tiebreaker is the only time spellers get the same words — and Shrey had a last bout with nerves as he stood there for five minutes while crews tried, and failed, to fix a technical glitch with the buzzer.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
