Champion
The winner was Sameer Mishra, a 13-year-old eighth grader at West Lafayette Junior-Senior High School, in Indiana. He was sponsored by his hometown newspaper, the Journal & Courier. His winning word was guerdon. He won $35,000 in cash and more than $5,000 in prizes.
In rounds 3 through 15, Mishra spelled "demitasse", "quadrat", "diener", "hyssop", "macédoine", "basenji", "numnah", "chorion", "nacarat", "sinicize", "hyphaeresis", "taleggio" and "esclandre" correctly, in that order.
In a comical moment during the spelling bee, he mistook the word "numnah" for "numb nut".
Mishra incorrectly spelled "sudation" in Round 2 as "sudatian." However, because a speller's combined score from Rounds 1 and 2 determines whether he or she advances in the competition, a speller can incorrectly spell a word in Round 2 without being eliminated.
Read more about this topic: 81st Scripps National Spelling Bee
Famous quotes containing the word champion:
“But now Miss America, World’s champion woman, you take your promenading self down into the cobalt blue waters of the Caribbean and see what happens. You meet a lot of darkish men who make vociferous love to you, but otherwise pay you no mid.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“What a terrible thing has happened to us all! To you there, to us here, to all everywhere. Peace who was becoming bright-eyed, now sits in the shadow of death; her handsome champion has been killed as he walked by her very side. Her gallant boy is dead. What a cruel, foul, and most unnatural murder! We mourn here with you, poor, sad American people.”
—Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)
“Let’s not quibble! I’m the foe of moderation, the champion of excess. If I may lift a line from a die-hard whose identity is lost in the shuffle, “I’d rather be strongly wrong than weakly right.””
—Tallulah Bankhead (1903–1968)