{"id":465586,"date":"2026-05-29T05:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T05:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/465586\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T05:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T05:35:09","slug":"california-teen-shrey-parikh-wins-national-spelling-bee-in-dramatic-tiebreaker-national-spelling-bee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/465586\/","title":{"rendered":"California teen Shrey Parikh wins National Spelling Bee in dramatic tiebreaker | National Spelling Bee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shrey Parikh felt the pressure of arriving at the Scripps National Spelling Bee<\/a> as a favorite, but his confidence showed every time he got a word he knew. And when it all came down to a lightning-round tiebreaker against Ishaan Gupta, Shrey left no doubt.<\/p>\n

Shrey turned a tense, high-quality final into a blowout Thursday night, racing through the 90-second \u201cspell-off\u201d and getting 32 words right to be crowned the best young speller in the English language. Ishaan spelled 25 words correctly in the tiebreaker.<\/p>\n

A 14-year-old from Rancho Cucamonga, California, Shrey finished third in 2024 but lost his school bee last year when he was battling a fever. He has dominated the bee circuit since, winning several online competitions against many of the same kids he outlasted this week in the nation\u2019s capital. His winning haul includes a custom trophy and $52,500 in cash.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now I\u2019m probably the happiest I\u2019ve ever been. I\u2019m just so happy and relieved, and just such a flood of emotions,\u201d Shrey said. \u201cAt my school bee last year, I was really dejected and just very upset. It didn\u2019t even sink in until the next day. I had a really tough time, but I\u2019m glad I was able to bounce back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ishaan, a 12-year-old seventh-grader from Jersey City, New Jersey, was a semi=finalist last year, outperformed some veteran spellers in the finals and has another year of eligibility left.<\/p>\n

Sarv Dharavane, a 12-year-old sixth-grader from Dunwoody, Georgia, finished third for the second consecutive year and has two more years to improve that placement.<\/p>\n

For the first time in the bee\u2019s history, second- and third-place finishers from the same year have gone on to win. Faizan Zaki won last year, and two years ago he was the runner-up, just ahead of Shrey, his close friend.<\/p>\n

Sporting a business-casual look with a dark, long-sleeve collared shirt, khakis and sneakers, the lanky Shrey strode to the microphone with a dour, apprehensive expression that instantly vanished when he heard his word from pronouncer Jacques Bailly and nodded vigorously \u2013 his tell that, yes, he knew it.<\/p>\n

Upon hearing the announcement confirming his victory in the spell-off, Shrey turned and shook his competitor\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n

The spell-off moves so fast that it\u2019s impossible to tell which word secures the title. But Scripps later announced that the winner was \u201cbromocriptine\u201d, a polypeptide alkaloid that mimics the activity of dopamine.<\/p>\n

Shrey can credit his victory to intense preparation. Shrey had three coaches: Sam Evans, who has tutored each of the past three champions; Sohum Sukhatankar, a co-champion himself in 2019; and Vijaya Ganesh, a longtime coach and the mother of a former spellers. He competed nonstop against other top spellers, pored through advanced study guides and tried to eliminate the variables that had led to the few unexpected exits of his long spelling career.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe school bee last year was a blessing in disguise,\u201d said Shrey\u2018s father, Gaurav Parikh. \u201cThat\u2019s very important in life to experience, you know, ups and downs. You\u2019re not going to win everything. You\u2019re going to learn how to deal with setbacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former spellers, coaches and other observers described this group of finalists as unusually strong, and they showed off their skills early by going 18 for 18 at the start, breezing through the first spelling and vocabulary rounds. Aiden Meng of Orinda, California, ended that streak when he was tripped up by \u201ccatometope\u201d to start the second spelling round.<\/p>\n

Then the crowd gasped when the bell rung on two thought to be capable of winning it all: Oliver Halkett for \u201cFaesulae\u201d and Zwe Spacetime for \u201cvaesite\u201d, words with tricky combinations of origins and vowel sounds.<\/p>\n

The bee\u2019s move to Constitution Hall<\/a>, a point of contention for spellers and their families because of inconveniences it caused, helped imbue the event with a lively atmosphere, with more intimate seating and better sight lines bringing the crowd closer to the action.<\/p>\n

New television host Mina Kimes of ESPN narrated the action smoothly alongside longtime bee analyst Paul Loeffler.<\/p>\n

One thing that was missing with the new venue: A shower of confetti when the champion was announced. Shrey\u2018s celebration was muted, respectful. But there was no doubt that he was a deserving winner.<\/p>\n

\u201cShrey\u2018s relentless,\u201d Evans said. \u201cI\u2019ve really never seen someone put this much effort into spelling bees and learning everything that he possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shrey Parikh felt the pressure of arriving at the Scripps National Spelling Bee as a favorite, but his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-465586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}