Historic 8-way tie at national spelling bee

Winners, l to r: Abhijay Kodali, Sohum Sukhatankar, Saketh Sundar, Rishik Gandhasri, Shruthika Padhy, Christopher Serrao, Erin Howard, and Rohan Raja

Last night the 92nd Scripps National Spelling Bee came to a close just after midnight with a historic eight-way tie.

“A superhuman group of adolescents broke the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday, with eight contestants crowned co-champions after the competition said it was running out of challenging words. … It was a stunning result…for the 92nd annual event, which has had six two-way ties but had never before experienced such a logjam at the top. After the 17th round, Jacques Bailly, the event’s pronouncer, announced that any of the eight remaining contestants who made it through three more words would share in the prize.” The New York Times has the story.

The 92nd Scripps National Spelling Bee had 565 contestants and was won by eight co-champions who had lasted through 20 rounds.

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