2 winners in national spelling bee

Ansun Sujoe, left, and Sriram Hathwar raise the championship trophy after being named co-champions of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Oxon Hill, Md., on Thursday.

OXON HILL, Md. – For the first time in 52 years, two spellers were declared co-champions of the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday.

Sriram Hathwar, of Painted Post, New York, and Ansun Sujoe, of Fort Worth, Texas, shared the title after a riveting final-round duel in which they nearly exhausted the 25 designated championship words. After they spelled a dozen words correctly in a row, they both were named champions.

Earlier, 14-year-old Sriram opened the door to an upset by 13-year-old Ansun after he misspelled “corpsbruder,” a close comrade. But Ansun was unable to take the title because he got “antigropelos,” which means waterproof leggings, wrong. More.

Are you good at spelling? Have you ever won a spelling bee?