And the consensus among spelling experts in the crowd is that Scripps didn’t nearly exhaust the words in the dictionary that can challenge the best spellers.
“This would never happen at my bee,” said Rahul Walia, founder of the South Asian Spelling Bee, where Sohum defeated Abhijay for the title last year. “They need to use harder words. The words are available.”
The majority of the spellers had personal coaches, and 13 of the 16 used word lists and study materials compiled by ex-spellers Shobha Dasari and her younger brother, Shourav. Shobha, who’s 18 and will go to Stanford in the fall, said the proliferation of private coaches and online study guides has simplified speller preparation, but she still gave credit to the champions. …
The breakdown of the final words spelled correctly Thursday night:
7/8 for team brown. Not good enough! Send ’em back to spelling boot camp 😉
Rishik Gandhasri, Erin Howard, Saketh Sundar, Shruthika Padhy, Sohum Sukhatankar, Abhijay Kodali, Christopher Serrao and Rohan Raja
http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/26860053/spelling-bee-ends-unprecedented-8-way-tie
with video.
excerpt:
And the consensus among spelling experts in the crowd is that Scripps didn’t nearly exhaust the words in the dictionary that can challenge the best spellers.
“This would never happen at my bee,” said Rahul Walia, founder of the South Asian Spelling Bee, where Sohum defeated Abhijay for the title last year. “They need to use harder words. The words are available.”
The majority of the spellers had personal coaches, and 13 of the 16 used word lists and study materials compiled by ex-spellers Shobha Dasari and her younger brother, Shourav. Shobha, who’s 18 and will go to Stanford in the fall, said the proliferation of private coaches and online study guides has simplified speller preparation, but she still gave credit to the champions. …
The breakdown of the final words spelled correctly Thursday night:
Gandhasri: auslaut
Howard: erysipelas
Sundar: bougainvillea
Padhy: aiguillette
Sukhatankar: pendeloque
Kodali: palama
Serrao: cernuous
Raja: odylic