Most people could not spell “cymotrichous” with a dictionary, but a 14-year-old girl from Pennsylvania, Sukanya Roy, spelled the word on Thursday to win the 2011 Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Roy, participating in the high-profile annual US spelling competition for the third time, won after 20 rounds in the final competition that went on until the late evening. The competition is open to students up to age 15 who are not beyond eighth grade.
A speaker of Bengali, Roy travels to India every summer to visit family and hopes to pursue a career in international relations.
An eighth grader at Abington Heights Middle School, Roy traced the letters of each word on her hands, round by round, increasing her confidence, she said.
After winning, she was shaking with excitement.
“My heart started pounding, I guess. I couldn’t believe it,” Roy told an ESPN broadcaster immediately after receiving her trophy.
Cymotrichous means having wavy hair. She said she knew the word immediately.
“I just wanted to spell it right,” Roy said. “I really didn’t want to get it wrong.”
Besides the trophy, she took home a $30 000 cash prize, a $2 500 US savings bond, a complete reference library, a $5 000 scholarship, $2 600 in reference works and other prizes.
The 275 spellers who started the bee on Wednesday included students from the United States and its territories, as well as the Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.
The first National Spelling Bee was held in 1925 and since then has become one of the largest and best-known educational competitions.
Last year’s winner, Anamika Veeramani from Cleveland, Ohio, won by spelling “stromuhr” correctly. – Reuters