84th Scripps National Spelling Bee
The 84th Scripps National Spelling Bee was held from May 31 - June 2, 2011 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center inna Oxon Hill, Maryland near Washington, D.C.. The champion was 14-year-old Sukanya Roy, who was the fourth consecutive person of Indian-American descent to win the competition.
Competition statistics
- 275 spellers participated in this year's competition, representing the United States, American Samoa, the Bahamas, Canada, China, Europe (DoDDS schools only), Ghana, Guam, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.[1]
- Canada was able to send three spellers to this Bee instead of one; Laura Newcombe, Veronica Penny, and Graham Abraham.
- The competition lasted twenty rounds before the winner was announced.
- The spellers' ages ranged from 8 to 15 years old, the youngest being Ethan Ruggeri from Virginia.[2][3]
- Two championship finalists from 2010 returned to participate in this Bee; Joanna Ye of Pennsylvania[4] and Laura Newcombe of Ontario, Canada.[5]
- This year was the seventh time the champion has come from Pennsylvania.
- This was the fourth year in a row and ninth time since 1999 that the champion has been of Indian-American descent.
- During the last rounds of the final five spellers, 20 words were spelled correctly. This is the equivalent of 4 full competition rounds with no incorrectly spelled words.
- This year, the Bee also lasted approximately 3 full hours, 1.5 hours more than the originally scheduled length.
Top finishers
- Sukanya Roy, of South Abington Township, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, representing the Times Leader of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, won the competition by spelling cymotrichous.[6][7]
- Laura Newcombe, of Toronto, Ontario, was the runner-up. She was eliminated by the word sorites as psorites.[8]
- Joanna Ye, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and Arvind Mahankali, of Forest Hills, New York, tied for third place. Ye was eliminated by the word galoubet as galubey.,[9] while Mahankali misspelled jugendstil as uguntschtiel.[10]
- Dakota Jones, of Las Vegas, Nevada, placed fifth; he was eliminated by the word zanja, spelling it as zangha.[11]
- Veronica Penny, of Rockland, Ontario, Dhivya Senthil Murugan, of Denver, Colorado, Sriram Hathwar, of Painted Post, New York, and Mashad Arora of Brownsville, Texas, tied for sixth place.
- Lily Jordan, of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, Nabeel Rahman, of Buffalo, New York, and Prakash Mishra, of Waxhaw, North Carolina, tied for tenth place.
- Samuel Estep, of Berryville, Virginia, placed thirteenth.
References
- ^ Speller Roster, accessed 3 June 2011.
- ^ Statistics, accessed 3 June 2011.
- ^ Bio for Ethan Ruggeri, accessed 3 June 2011.
- ^ Bio for Joanna Ye, accessed 3 June 2011.
- ^ Bio for Laura Newcombe, accessed 3 June 2011.
- ^ Championship Finalists, accessed 3 June 2011.
- ^ Words spelled by Sukanya Roy, accessed 3 June 2011.
- ^ Words spelled by Laura Newcombe, accessed 3 June 2011.
- ^ "Joanna Ye: Results". Scripps. http://public.spellingbee.com/public/results/2011/round_results/speller/206. Retrieved June 5, 2011.
- ^ "Arvind Mahankali: Results". Scripps. http://public.spellingbee.com/public/results/2011/round_results/speller/157. Retrieved June 5, 2011.
- ^ "Dakota Jones: Results". Scripps. http://public.spellingbee.com/public/results/2011/round_results/speller/141. Retrieved June 5, 2011.
External links