12-year-old wins astonishing spell-off at Scripps National Spelling Bee

Bruhat Soma, a 12-year-old seventh-grader from Tampa, Florida, has won the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee after an astonishing spell-off with one other contestant, Faizan Zaki, 12, of Plano, Texas.

Bruhat blazed through 29 difficult words in 90 seconds, prevailing over Faizan’s correct spelling of 20 words. “I can’t describe it,” Bruhat said, as the confetti rained down. “I’m still shaking.”

Bruhat will take home a $50,000 prize, a trophy and the priceless recognition as an extremely smart young person. The annual competition of elite elementary and middle school spellers drew an initial pool of 245 competitors.

The 96th Scripps National Spelling Bee began Tuesday with 245 contestants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Department of Defense Schools in Europe. Spellers also came from the Bahamas, Canada and Ghana. The contestants were whittled down in six rounds of spelling and three vocabulary rounds in which spellers answered multiple-choice questions about the definition of a word. A single wrong misspelling or wrong answer means elimination from the competition.

The other six finalists were knocked out on desmotrope, immanent, apophasis, Lillooet, kanin and murrina.

Dev Shah, a 14-year-old from Largo, Florida, won last year’s competition after correctly spelling “psammophile,” a plant or animal that prefers or thrives in sandy areas. Dev survived 15 rounds of spelling. The three-time national contestant began his spelling career in the third grade, and had spent 10 hours a day studying in the year leading up to his triumphant win.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.