How Faizan Zaki recovered from a stunning flub to win the National Spelling Bee
The favorite in the Scripps National Spelling Bee rebounded from a surprising error Thursday night to claim the title after rounds of competition Related Articles California Senate approves bill to automatically admit grads to CSUs Oakland schools superintendent talks campus closures AI on the way out Opinion Sugar is making our kids sick Why are schools serving it As coach burnout deepens states scramble to fill school job vacancies Los Gatos students awarded scholarships tools Faizan Zaki from Allen Texas flopped gleefully to the stage after he clinched the preeminence with eclaircissement He had charged into the word without asking for any of the clues the more cautious contestants routinely request definition language of origin use in a sentence The word means a clearing up of something obscure The impetuous tactic was all the more unexpected given that it had cost him big three rounds earlier The two other remaining contestants had missed their words in Round clearing Faizan s path to conquest But presented with commelina he at once started spelling K-A-M Realizing his error he paused Oh shoot and informed the judge Just ring the bell The moment of overconfidence brought his two competitors back into play until Faizan last year s runner-up spelled back-to-back words correctly Coming in second was Sarvadnya Kadam a -year-old from Visalia Calif third was Sarv Dharavane of Dunwoody Ga The top Bay Area speller was Aren Lee an eighth-grader at The King s Academy in Sunnyvale He was eliminated in the semifinals and finished in a tie for th Watching Faizan s supremacy was Bruhat Soma his friend who beat him in last year s bee when a lightning round was deployed to break the tie Of Faizan s less-than-cautious approach Bruhat disclosed I think he cared too much about his aura Faizan had a more nuanced explanation After losing last year by not spelling as fast as his rival he overcorrected and emphasized speed in his preparation But with his shaggy hair and black hoodie he did indeed present a cool demeanor throughout the three days of competition in Oxon Hill Md He s crazy He s having a good time and he s doing what he loves which is spelling revealed Sam Evans one of his coaches Declared Zaki Anwar Faizan s father He s the GOAT I definitely believe that He s really good man He s been doing it for so long and he knows the dictionary in and out As the family bounded to the stage after the trophy presentation Zaki Anwar stopped first to shake the hand of runner-up Sarvadnya who stood off to the side amid the hoopla It was the Visalia teen s last year of eligibility Faizan has one more year Last year s bee had little drama before an abrupt move to the spell-off which was not a popular decision This year Scripps tweaked the competition rules giving judges more leeway to let the competition play out before going to the tiebreaker in which contestants spell as several words as realizable in seconds The nine finalists delivered During one stretch six spellers got consecutive words right and there were three perfect rounds during the finals The last time there was a single perfect round was the infamous bee which ended in an eight-way tie Including Faizan whose parents emigrated from southern India of the past champions have been Indian American With the winner s haul of added to his second-place prize of Faizan increased his bee earnings to His big splurge with his winnings last year A Rubik s cube with squares on each side This time he explained he d donate a large portion to charity The Associated Press contributed to this document
