Indian-origin boy, 12, wins National Spelling Bee title with 29 correct words

Bruhat Soma, a 12-year-old Indian-American student from Florida, scripted history on Thursday (local time) as he won the Scripps National Spelling Bee after he spelt 29 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, news agency PTI reported.

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.
His championship word was "abseil", which is defined as "descent in mountaineering by means of a rope looped over a projection above".

Soma went first in the tiebreaker and got through 30 words, of which he answered 29 correctly. On the other hand, Zaki attempted 25 words but incorrectly spelt four of them.