Bruhat Soma was invincible even before he entered the Scripps National Spelling Bee; neither the dictionary, nor competitors, nor lightning-fast tiebreakers could challenge him on his way to victory.
Burhat correctly spelled 29 words in the tiebreaker, beating Faizan Zaki by nine words to win the tournament on Thursday night. He received a trophy and more than $50,000 in cash and prizes.
The 12-year-old seventh-grader from Tampa, Florida, had won three consecutive spelling bees before taking to the stage at a convention center outside Washington to take on the English language’s most prestigious spelling contest.
“I always want to win, and this has been my main goal,” said Bruhat. “It didn’t matter if I won all the other bees, this is what I was aiming for, so I’m really happy to win this time.”
The competition started with just eight finalists, the fewest since 2010, and it was clear from the start that Scripps was looking to fill a two-hour slot on Ion, a network owned by the Cincinnati-based media company.
There were frequent, long commercial breaks that allowed the spellers to wander around the side of the stage and chat with coaches, relatives and supporters.
Then, before Burhat and Faizan were given the chance to spell against each other in the regular round, tournament officials announced the start of a tiebreaker called a “spell-off.”
“I would have liked to see more of them going head to head,” said Charlotte Walsh, who finished runner-up to Dev Shah last year. “Going straight to the spell-off is a really interesting choice.”
Bruhat tried first and after completing 30 words it looked impossible to beat him. Faizan’s pace was more uneven initially. He attempted 25 words, of which he got four wrong.
According to Scripps, Bruhat’s winning word was “abseil,” which is defined as “in mountaineering, the descent by attaching a rope to a protruding object”.
Tiebreakers have only been used once before, Harini Logan to win in 2022 The winning word is the word in which the speller manages to type one more correct word than their competitor.
Shortly after Bruhat was showered with confetti and handed the trophy, Faizan was in tears at the side of the stage as he was embraced by the other spellers.
Minutes earlier, he had hugged his best friend Shrey Parikh after the latter’s on-stage elimination.
Faizan spelled out the last word in the regular contest in a walk-off format and stormed through the “nikri” and back to his seat without a single question. Mic drop spell in Shourav Dasari’s “Mogoyon” 2017.
But the 12-year-old sixth-grader from Allen, Texas, wasn’t given a second chance.
“I definitely think they should have been given the opportunity to do a couple of traditional spelling rounds before settling on the spell-off,” said Scott Remar, one of Faizan’s four coaches. “I don’t think there was any need to artificially add drama.”
Although tournament rules call for a spell-off to be used to save time, Scripps found time for another commercial break between the tiebreaker and the announcement of Bluhat’s victory.
Prior to participating in this contest, Bruhat won the “Words of Wisdom” contest hosted by Remar, a former speller and study guide author.
He won a SpellPundit contest hosted by the study guide company, as well as the first-ever online contest hosted by last year’s Scripps champion, Dev.
His last loss was at Wishwin’s senior spelling bee in September, when he mispronounced “Gloucester,” a cheese named after a city in England. He knew the city but didn’t know it was also a cheese, so he guessed “Gloucester.”
“I guess after that I just kept winning,” he said.
Though he seemed unstoppable on stage, Burkhat said there was one word he didn’t know: the Turkmenistan currency, “tennesi.”
Ananya Prassana got the answer right in the most awful round, where all the words were of unknown, unclear or non-existent origin in a language.
Bluehat said he wants to spend the summer relaxing and spending more time watching and playing basketball, a passion he has put aside this past year to prepare for the Bees.
He is the second consecutive winner from the Tampa Bay area, and with his win, 29 of the past 35 spelling champions have been Indian-American.
His parents immigrated from the southern Indian state of Telangana, a region that has produced a number of Indian-American champions and challengers in the quarter century since Nupur Lara’s 1999 victory, later featured in the documentary “Spellbound.”
Bruhat’s win is also a victory for previously unknown former speller turned coach, Sam Evans, 16, who coached three of the top four finishers.
He also served as a tutor to Faizan and Shree, both 12-year-olds from Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., both in the sixth grade with two years of eligibility remaining.
Bruhat has practiced the spell-off during every coaching session with Evans over the past six months.
“It’s all down to his hard work. I’m so happy I was able to use my experience to help him, but at the end of the day it’s all down to his hard work and dedication,” Evans said. “I’m just so happy for him.”
