Scripps National Spelling Bee: Sixth-grader spells 'marocain' for the win
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Twelve-year-old Ananya Vinay has won the 90th Scripps National Spelling Bee.
The sixth-grader from Fresno, California, won by spelling "marocain," a French word for dress fabric made of ribbed crepe. She gets more than $40,000 in cash and prizes.
Runner-up Rohan Rajeev missed the word "marram," a Scandinavian-derived word for beach grass.
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Ananya's victory was the first time since 2013 that the bee has declared a single champion. It ended in a tie for three consecutive years.
The bee added a written tiebreaker test this year, but it didn't come into play.
It was the first time since 2013 that the bee declared a sole champion. After three straight years of ties, the bee added a tiebreaker test this year, and it looked like it might come into play as Ananya and Rohan dueled for 21 of the allotted 25 championship rounds.
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Last year, Ananya fared well enough on the bee's written spelling and vocabulary test to make the top 50, but she flubbed a relatively easy word, "multivalent," on stage.
"She panicked. It was not a hard word," said her father, Vinay Sreekumar. "I think she learned from that and she consciously worked on it, how you shouldn't panic, just focus on the word."
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Ananya is the 13th consecutive Indian-American to win the bee and the 18th of the past 22 winners with Indian heritage, a run that began in 1999 with Nupur Lala's victory