National Spelling Bee Finals Spell V-I-C-T-O-R-Y For Winner

ORLANDO, FL — Ready to acquiesce that you might have less-than-exemplary spelling prowess?

Ready or not, students from across the United States and the Bahamas are ready to take on “arenaceous,” “fossiliferous,” “Beelzebub” and dozens of other words to prove their mettle and show us how the best spellers get it done.

The 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee will be held Thursday night in Orlando, Florida. The bee, which has been running for nearly a century, will take place at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at the Walt Disney Resort.

The spelling bee finals will be broadcast live on ESPN2 or spellingbee.com starting at 8 p.m. ET.

Participating in this year’s spelling bee finals are:

• Roy Seligman, 12, from Nassau, Bahamas
• Bhavana Madini, 13, from New York
• Sreethan Gajula, 14, from Charlotte, North Carolina
• Ashrita Gandhari, 14, from Leesburg, Virginia
• Avani Joshi, 13, from Loves Park, Illinois
• Zaila Avant-garde, 14, from New Orleans
• Vivinsha Veduru, 10, from Fort Worth, Texas
• Dhroov Bharatia, 12, from Dallas, Texas
• Vihaan Sibal, 12, from Waco, Texas
• Akshainie Kamma, 13, from Austin, Texas
• Chaitra Thummala, 12, from San Francisco

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The National Spelling Bee began in 1925 when nine newspapers joined to host the event. Today, the event is organized by the nonprofit E.W. Scripps Company and reaches 11 million students each year.

Last month, the spelling bee welcomed more than 200 participants to the preliminary round of the 2021 championship. For the first three rounds, spellers competed virtually. Thursday marks the first time spellers have met in person.

This year’s spelling bee brings a new addition to the competition. Word meaning rounds — during which spellers will be required to orally select the correct multiple-choice answer to a vocabulary question read by the pronouncer — have been added as the second round of competition.

The inclusion of word meaning rounds is meant to challenge spellers and further expand the competition’s focus on word knowledge and literacy, according to the bee’s website.

The last National Spelling Bee was held in 2019 when, in an unprecedented achievement, eight spellers were named co-champions of the event. After a suspenseful 20 rounds of head-to-head competition, the group became the first to share the coveted title of top speller.

The winner of this year’s competition gets a cash prize that’s pretty easy to spell out: $50,000.

The winner also receives a commemorative medal and the Scripps Cup, the championship trophy of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, an additional $2,500 cash prize from the bee’s dictionary partner Merriam-Webster, and $400 worth of reference works, including a 1768 Encyclopædia Britannica replica set.