A 14-year-old Indian-American, Harini Logan, has won the 2022 US Scripps National Spelling Bee competition after a cutthroat battle with 12-year-old Vikram Raju at the final stage.
Logan, who defeated 234 spellers in the US and across the globe to clinch the winners’ title in the competition, which was held on June 4, 2022, had in previous years lost out as the 323rd (2018), 30th (2019), and 31st position (2021), Time of India reported.
Speaking to the media, the Indian-American ascribe her participation choice in the Spelling bee competition to ‘her love for reading.’
She spelt 22 words correctly out of 26, incorrectly spelling only 4 words: Hontish, Semmit, Akori, and Siserary.
The Montessori School of San Antonio 8th grader defeated her contender, Raju, at the Spell-Off session, the first of its kind in the competition since its inception in 1925.
A stiffened moment where both finalists misspelt two words made the judges opt for a spell-off session, a 90-second round to spell as many words as possible correctly.
She spelt 22 words correctly during this session, while her opponent could only scutter 15, leading to her victory.
Logan described the victory as ‘surreal’ after a heart-stopping moment where she was eliminated at the finals but was later reinstated by the judges, who said her definition of ‘pullulation’ was acceptable.
