It's India Again! Faizan Zaki Wins 100th Scripps National Spelling Bee

'K-A-M...' began 13-year-old Faizan Zaki, whose family comes from Hyderabad. 'Ok, let me do this. Oh shoot!'

He had rushed to spell the word without asking about its definition or origin, questions spelling bee competitors normally ask.

"Just ring the bell," he gave up and told the judge, a decision that allowed eliminated competitors Sarvadnya Kadam and Sarv Dharavane re-enter the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Any one of them -- all three with Indian connections -- could now be the winner of the 100th edition of this challenging competition. And this would be the fourth consecutive win by an Indian-American student.

Both Sarvadnya and Sarv had misspelled their words a couple of rounds earlier but Faizan's fumble as he tackled the word 'commelina' gave them a second lease of life.

When it came to the final word -- 'eclaircissement' -- however, Faizan spelled it correctly without, once again, asking a single question.

IMAGE: And then, this happened. All photographs: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

IMAGE: And this :)
Faizan may have got 'commelina' wrong but he crowned himself the spelling champ with 'eclaircissement'.

IMAGE: Faizan became only the fifth runner-up in the Bee's century-long history to return and claim the crown, earning $52,500 in prize money.
This is Faizan's fourth attempt at the Bee.
He was just seven years old when he first competed in 2019 as a wild-card entry.
In 2023, he made it to the semi-finals.
Last year, he was the first runner-up and won $25,000.
Incidentally, Texas, where Faizan is from has produced the most Bee champions -- 17.

IMAGE: Oliver Halkett, 13, of Los Angeles, California, likes playing the piano, learning Mandarin and Latin, playing soccer and reading.

IMAGE: "Well, this is surprising," grinned Sarv, from Tucker, Georgia, as he got a second chance at the finals.

IMAGE: Aishwarya Kallakuri, 14, of Charlotte, North Carolina, stumbled on the word 'Keighley'.
The competition evolved from nine participants in 1925 to 243 international competitors celebrating this centennial milestone.