OXON HILL, MARYLAND, May 28, 2015 (Huffington Post): For the second straight year, the Scripps National Spelling Bee ended with co-champions each holding onto one side of the golden trophy while they were showered with confetti. Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam were the last two standing Thursday after exhausting the 25 words reserved for the final three spellers without stumbling. Before last year, there hadn’t been a tie since 1962. Vanya, 13, of Olathe, Kansas and Gokul, 14, from Chesterfield, Missouri will receive more than $37,000 in cash and prizes.
Roughly 11 million spellers entered local bees, and 285 made it to the national bee, which is held at a convention center outside Washington and televised by ESPN. The ten finalists included several other bee veterans and crowd favorites. The last 10 winners of the bee, and 14 of the past 18, have been Indian-Americans, a run of dominance that began in 1999 with Nupur Lala’s victory, which was later featured in the documentary “Spellbound.”