Spelling bee champion triumphs with 'cymotrichous'
It wasn鈥檛 exactly a piece of cake, but Sukanya Roy鈥檚 journey to become this year鈥檚 champion speller started off with an easy word to chew on: 鈥渃roissant.鈥�
By round 13 of the spelling bee, she had conquered such tongue twisters as 鈥減sephomancy鈥� and 鈥渮wischenspiel.鈥�
In her crowning moment of decoding, she spelled out on her palm as she spoke the letters of 鈥渃ymotrichous,鈥� which means having wavy hair. Then her palm went up to cover her smile as she soaked in the realization that she had won the 84th Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington.
鈥淚鈥檓 just kind of in shock," Sukanya said, according to the Associated Press. 鈥淭hey were very hard words, but all the words I got, I just knew.鈥�
This was the third and final trip to the national bee for the 8th-grader from South Abington Township, Penn. The fourth consecutive student of Indian origin to win the bee also hikes, competes in math challenges, and plays the violin.
A competition that began earlier in the week with 275 spellers was narrowed down to 13 finalists by Thursday night. Five spellers hung on way beyond the time originally allotted by broadcaster ESPN, nailing word after word and nervously wondering who would be the first to stumble.
Two Canadians had hoped to be the first from their country to win the trophy. Veronica Penny missed the word 鈥渞ougeot.鈥� Laura Newcombe, who came in second, missed the word 鈥渟orites鈥� by one letter, adding a 鈥減鈥� in front of the 鈥渟.鈥�
