Spelling 32 complex words in just over one-and-a-half minutes was all it took for Indian-origin teenager Shrey Parikh to win the United States’ largest and longest-running educational competition, the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Parikh relentlessly spelt words correctly, pressing the buzzer and moving to the next round without pause. Minor hiccups over the spellings of “cydyddau”, “sawder” and “uayeb” were not enough to stop him from clinching the title.
As soon as “Time” was announced, the crowd erupted into thunderous applause, with Shrey flashing a smile of relief and stretching his fingers after frantically hitting the buzzer for more than 90 seconds.
"Cashaw", spelt as cushaw or linked with cashews, was the winning word.
The 14-year-old from Rancho Cucamonga, California, sealed the title with a dominant display in the final on Thursday night after defeating fellow finalist Ishaan Gupta, 12, in a tense lightning-round tiebreaker.
Seen as one of the favourites going into the competition, Shrey lived up to expectations in the decisive 90-second spell-off round, reported international news agency Associated Press. He correctly spelt 32 words, finishing well ahead of Ishaan, who managed 25, in Washington, DC.
Shrey had finished third in the competition in 2024 and had also faced disappointment last year when he missed out after losing his school spelling bee while battling a fever. Since then, he has established himself as one of the strongest young spellers in the US, winning several online contests against many of the same participants he went up against this week.
Apart from spelling, Shrey has a wide range of interests, including tennis, reading, mathematics and chess. He also plays percussion in his school band and performs on instruments such as the snare drum, bass drum, timpani, toms, triangle, glockenspiel and marimba.
He also enjoys visiting India to spend time with his grandparents. His win capped a strong run in the competition and underlined the form he had shown in recent contests.
2025 was no different. Indian Americans dominated the Spelling Bee contest with 13-year-old Faizan Zaki from Dallas, Texas winning the contest.
In 2024, a 12-year-old Bruhat Soma, also an Indian-American student, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee after he spelt 29 out of 30 words correctly in 90 seconds.
The boy won the contest and got USD 50,000 (approx Rs 41.64 lakh) in cash and other prizes. The contest saw a nail-biting finish as Soma correctly spelt 29 words, including those that were complex and tricky, in 90 seconds, comfortably beating one Faizan Zaki, who spelt 20 words in the lightning round.
