From words to vocabulary, the country’s top young spellers have been locked in a battle with the dictionary. The Scripps National Spelling Bee started with 247 spellers, and now just nine students will take the stage for the finals Thursday night.
The spellers survived nine rounds of spelling and vocabulary to make it to the finals. And through every round, they support and encourage each other with plenty of high fives to try to calm their nerves.
Logan Bailey is making his first appearance on the National Spelling Bee stage. When he was spelling his final word in the semifinals, he said, “I was more excited than nervous, you could say. It’s just that I wasn’t sure if I was going to be in the finals or not or get that word right and everything was cruising through my head.”
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Three of this year’s finalists have been to the finals before – Oliver Halkett, Shrey Parikh and Sarv Dharavane. Dharavane finished in third place at last year’s Bee and he is thrilled he made it back to the finals.
"I’ve prepared a lot for this spelling and qualifying for the finals. But it’s not over yet. I’m still not done. There’s one more stage left and I intend on completing that fully,” he said.
But all of these spellers have been preparing for this moment for months.
Zwe Spacetime is the younger brother of 2021 Bee winner Zaila Avant-garde. He said his dad is his main study partner.
“I just do two to four hours per day spelling, but I do more during the weekend," Zwe said.
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“I’ve been working towards it for the past year, like tirelessly. But like I didn’t expect for me to actually make it to the finals,” said Avishka Dudala, a 13-year-old finalist from Prosper, Texas.
The speller who wins Thursday night will get more than just a trophy and bragging rights. Other prizes for the winner include a trip to Kennedy Space Center and $50,000 cash. But no matter what happens on stage Thursday night, all of this year’s spellers are already champions.
The Bee Finals will air on Ion starting at 8 p.m. Thursday.
