There’s a word for that
National spelling bee becoming easier to predict, but there are still surprises
To the fans watching on ESPN, Nihar Janga’s win last year in the Scripps National Spelling Bee was a shock: He was only 11 years old, a Grade 5 student appearing in the bee for the first time, competing against Grade 8 students with deep voices and facial hair.
To the tight-knit community of spellers and ex-spellers who track performances leading up to the bee, Nihar was something else: a seasoned competitor with an impressive resumé and a threat to win it all.
As the bee has become increasingly difficult, spellers are less likely to come out of nowhere and hoist the trophy. There’s more information available about kids in the bee, and champion spellers have increasingly fit a familiar profile.
For them, the bee is an all-consuming, year-round pursuit.
Nihar was considered a dangerous speller because, the previous summer, he had finished second in the North South Foundation spelling bee.
The non-profit foundation hosts national competitions for Indian-Americans in a variety of academic fields. The past 10 National Spelling Bee winners have participated in the foundation’s spelling bee, and 17 of the past 21 champions have been Indian-American.
And three of the nine kids who’ve won the South Asian Spelling Bee have gone on to win the Scripps bee.
The last dark horse to win was Ansun Sujoe, a co-champion in 2014, the first of three straight years during which the bee ended in a tie. His results in the North South Foundation weren’t impressive, and he didn’t make it past the preliminary rounds in his prior National Spelling Bee appearance.
Two years ago, Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam easily withstood the pressure of being labelled co-favourites and shared the title. And last year, Nihar was co-champion with Jairam Hathwar, a polished speller whose older brother shared the title with Ansun in 2014.
Things were different a generation ago, before the Internet and the creation of the North South Foundation and South Asian bees.
Lekshmi Nair, who participated in the bee from 1988-90, said she showed up knowing next to nothing about her fellow spellers.
Now, ex-spellers who remain close to the bee swap lists of favourites and participate in fantasy leagues. They share news about the words used in regional bees and pay close attention to parts of the country that are known to be competitive, like Florida, California, New York and Texas.
Three spellers are consensus favourites this year: Shourav Dasari, a past North South Foundation and South Asian Spelling Bee champion whose older sister came close several times; Siyona Mishra, who won last year’s South Asian bee and finished ninth in her only National Spelling Bee appearance; and Tejas Muthusamy, who’s making his fourth appearance, with two previous top-10 finishes.
Even if one of the favourites ends up winning, the bee still has plenty of surprises. Last year, Shourav was also highly touted, but he misspelled a word and fell just short of the prime-time finals.
“In almost every bee there’s a kid or a handful of kids that there’s a lot of chatter about because they’ve done well previously,” said Paige Kimble, the bee’s executive director. “And almost every bee there’s a shock moment that comes when those kids who were the subject of a lot of chatter meet the word they didn’t know.”
Nair has been quizzing her daughter, Mira, at least two hours a night, and more on weekends, since last year’s bee. Mira fell just short of advancing from the preliminary rounds last year and wants to improve because she’s in Grade 8 and it’s her final year of eligibility.
“It would be very hard to do for three, four years in a row. I would have a hard time with that,” said Nair. “It’s been very exhausting.”