Bruhat will receive $50,000 in cash, a commemorative medal and the Scripps Cup.
Confetti erupted from the ceiling with a bang Thursday night as Bruhat Soma, 12, was declared the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion.
Bruhat, who went first, stunned the crowd with his speed. His fingers flew through the air with each word, as if typing on invisible keys. In 90 seconds, he spelled 29 correctly.“That was amazing,” said the Bee’s longtime pronouncer and 1980 spelling bee champion Jacques Bailly as he prepared to crown a champion. “That was really amazing.”
He was nervous throughout the competition, he said, listening closely to every word offered to each contestant. If there were some he did not know, he said, he took notice. Some would end up on his own personal list of words to practice.But when time came Thursday for the rapid-fire spell-off, Bruhat said, he felt an overwhelming sense of calm.Every day for the past six months, Bruhat said, he practiced drilling words as fast as he possibly could for 90-second intervals.
This year’s bee, the 95th, featured six returning finalists. In addition to the Scripps Cup, the winner took home $50,000.“I feel like a celebrity, kind of,” the 12-year-0ld said. Two hundred and forty-five spellers took the stage this week. They were from all 50 states, as well as D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and ranged in age from an 8-year-old third-grader to a 15-year-old eighth-grader. Several competitors from the D.C. region, including Navya Dwivedi, 13, of Columbia, Md., and Nargiza Muzhapaer, 13, of Merrifield, Va., made it to the semifinals. But by the end of the day Wednesday, all local spellers had been eliminated.
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