Spelling Bee championship finals: eight finalists compete for orthographic glory – live | National Spelling Bee

ELIMINATED: Rishabh Saha (desmotrope), seven spellers left

It’s time! The elite eight have taken the stage, the Ion telecast is under way and we’re set to begin any moment now.

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that you can gamble on this. According to one bookmaker, tonight’s winning word is likeliest to be a noun (plus-180 odds) with fewer than 11½ letters (minus-140) and more than 3½ vowels (minus-150).

A couple of other sportsbooks have offered proposition bets on the gender of the champion, whether he or she will wear glasses, whether they will have braces, what state they’ll hail from and whether a spell-off will be necessary. (That number, by the way, is 1-800-GAMBLER.)

FLOTUS has entered the chat. An inspirational message from Dr Jill Biden, who says that she’ll be watching tonight’s finals alongside the commander-in-chief in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

The majority of entrants in the National Spelling Bee are from the US, hailing from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the territories of Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Canada, the Bahamas, Germany and Ghana are were represented this year. Texas has the largest representation with 20 national competitors. California and Ohio are next with 17 each, followed by Florida, Illinois and New York with 13 apiece.

Only 57 spellers returned from last year’s field, while 180 spellers were first-time competitors, nearly three-quarters of the crop.

Four of last year’s finalists advanced to the 2024 national competition: Sarah Fernandes (Speller No 131), tied for 10th place; Aryan Khedkar (No 111), tied for fifth; Tarini Nandakumar (No 205), finished ninth; and Shradha Rachamreddy (No 13), tied for third. Aliyah Alpert (No 4) and Kirsten Santos (No 212) were finalists in 2022. (Santos, from Houston, is back in the final group tonight.)

Rachamreddy was considered the consensus favorite to win after last year’s high finish, but was ousted amid Wednesday’s “bloodbath”.

[Rachamreddy] was eliminated on exactly the sort of “super short, tricky word” she said she concentrated on studying after misspelling “orle” last year. This year it was “varan”, a type of lizard. She added an extra “r”, and former spellers in the audience gasped at her mistake.

“I am in shock and despair,” said Dev Shah, the 2023 champion. “We all thought she was going to win,” added Charlotte Walsh, last year’s runner-up.

Some other historical bric-a-brac, via Scripps’ crack research team:

first male champion: Frank Neuhauser, Louisville, 1925
first female champion: Pauline Bell, Louisville, 1926
first non-American champion: Jody-Anne Maxwell, Jamaica, 1998
first Black champion: Jody-Anne Maxwell, Jamaica, 1998
first Black American champion: Zaila Avant-garde, New Orleans, 2021
most national competitions: Akash Vukoti (six), 2016, 2018-19, 2021-23
youngest competitor: Edith Fuller, 2017, 6 years old

People magazine ran a nice exclusive today profiling the Rhode Island man thought to be the oldest living Spelling Bee champion. Meet William Cashore, who was 14 years old and a student at Malvern Prep in suburban Philadelphia when he won the 27th annual competition on 30 May 1954. His winning word: transept, which refers to part of a cruciform church that crosses at right angles to the greatest length between the nave and the apse or choir.

“I knew that word but had never been asked to spell it,” he says, adding how growing up his parents would give him lists of words to memorize.

“But I knew right away what it was. I spelled that, and I just kept telling myself to stay as calm as possible because one way you make a mistake in a competition is by jumping in and trying to spell the word too fast,” he continues.

After reciting the word, the announcer raised his hand. “He said, ‘Winner,’ and I heard my mother yelling ‘Woo!’ “ Cashore shares.

“At that moment, I said, ‘Boy, my parents are going to like this,’ “ he adds. “It’s one of my fondest memories, but I didn’t let it get in the way of anything else that seemed important.”

Following his win, Cashore participated in a celebratory tour with a few of the other contestants. He met Vice President Richard Nixon, was a guest on the Ed Sullivan Show and was even a contestant on the TV quiz show I’ve Got a Secret.

After that, he traveled home, where his town threw him a small parade. He took home with him his prizes: a 25-volume Encyclopedia Britannica, a trophy and a $500 cash prize.

“I remember that life didn’t change very much, but when I went to high school, everybody kidded me by calling me ‘Speller.’ And it wasn’t mean-spirited or anything, it was just a convenient nickname,” he says.

The 84-year-old retired neonatologist, a longtime professor at Brown University’s medical school, is celebrating the 70th anniversary of his banner win (to the date, remarkably) tonight.

Incredibly, this marks the 96th year of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. The first was staged in 1925 with just nine contestants, with Kentucky’s Frank Neuhauser taking home the title by correctly spelling gladiolus, a flower he had raised as a boy. He took home $500 in gold pieces for his trouble. Other tricky championship-winning words down the years include esquamulose (1962), xanthosis (1995), succedaneum (2001) and appoggiatura (2005).

Ever wonder how you’d match up against the champions of the past. Here’s your chance. Take our quiz to see if you can spell a sampling of the championship-winning words from previous bees.

There’s plenty at stake for the eight spellers who have made it this far. The last girl or boy standing will receive: a $50,000 cash prize, a commemorative medal and the Scripps Cup trophy (from Scripps); $2,500 cash and a reference library (from Merriam-Webster); a one-year subscription to Britannica Online Premium (from Encyclopædia Britannica), in addition to various other academic bits and bobs.

The runner-up will receive $25,000, with cash prizes for third ($15,000), fourth ($10,000), fifth ($5,000) and sixth places ($2,500). The seventh- and eighth-place finishers will go home with a cool $2,000 apiece. Additionally, all eight finalists will be awarded commemorative medals.

If two or more spellers tie for first, each will receive $50,000. That’s not a remote possibility, at least not anymore. When Sriram J Hathwar and Ansun Sujoe shared the title in 2014, it was the first time the National Spelling Bee had co-champions since 1962. Then Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam fought to a memorable stalemate in 2015, prompting officials to install rule changes – a longer championship round with more difficult words – in an effort to ensure singular champions moving forward, only for Jairam Hathwar and Nihar Janga to fight to a third straight tie in 2016. Then, in 2019, an unprecedented eight spellers tied for the title when organizers ran out of words considered challenging enough for the field. That prompted a major overhaul for 2021 including the addition of vocabulary questions and a lightning-round tiebreaker.

Why isn’t the Spelling Bee on ESPN anymore?

The Spelling Bee has always been one of the more photogenic events on the US sports calendar. This year has been no exception. Here’s a look at some of the best shots from the 2024 contest (so far).

A look at tonight’s finalists

Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s Scott Remer’s comment on why the National Spelling Bee is more important than ever in the AI age.