This Was An Intense Spelling Bee

The Scripps National Spelling Bee ended in an eight-way tie after the contest ran out of words challenging enough to stump more contestants. The spelling bee went on past midnight Thursday. In the 19th round, judges announced that if the remaining contestants could spell three more words, they would all take home the top prize.

“We do have plenty of words remaining in our list, but we’ll soon run out of words that will challenge you,” Jacques Bailly, the event’s producer, told the young finalists, who ranged in age from 12 to 14. “We’re throwing the dictionary at you. And so far, you are showing this dictionary who is boss.”

The eight final words the winners spelled were: bougainvillea, aiguillette, pendeloque, palama, cernuous, auslaut, odylic and erysipelas.

The National Spelling Bee has been happening annually for more than 90 years. This year, one winner was supposed to take home $50,000. Instead, all eight winners will get $50,000 and a first-place trophy.

Believe it or not, this is not the longest spelling bee in the competition’s history. The 2017 contest went for 36 rounds. However, having eight students make it this far was unprecedented.

13-year-old Sohum Sukhatankar, one of the eight winners, said she was hoping that all of her co-contestants would spell their words correctly so they could split the prize.

“As a speller, you know how hard everyone else has worked and you know how much they deserve to win,” she told CNN Friday morning.