California teen wins US National Spelling Bee with 'bromocriptine'

Shrey Parikh, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Rancho Cucamonga, California, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee in a spell-off on Thursday, correctly spelling 32 words rapid-fire over 90 seconds to claim the $50,000 cash prize.

He defeated Ishaan Gupta, a 12-year-old seventh-grader from Jersey City, New Jersey, who got 25 words correct from the same list, after having been sequestered during Shrey's turn.

Both advanced to the dramatic finale in the televised competition after they survived 18 rounds without misspelling a word on the final day. The eliminatory spell-off was introduced in 2021 after the 2019 competition ended with eight co-champions who kept spelling words correctly.

Event organizers said Shrey's winning word, from a long list of obscure selections, was "bromocriptine," which is "a polypeptide alkaloid that is a derivative of ergot and mimics the activity of dopamine," according to the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary.

He advanced to the spell-off by nailing Philepitta, a genus of Madagascan birds, while Ishaan matched him in the 18th round with Ertebolle - of or belonging to an Early Neolithic or Late Mesolithic culture in the Baltic region.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is one of the most well-known academic competitions in the U.S., tracing its origins to 1925, when the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper invited students to participate in a national spelling contest.

Over the decades, the spelling bee has evolved into a highly competitive event that draws hundreds of participants from across the U.S. and around the world.

Contestants qualify through a series of local and regional bees, spelling complex and obscure words, sometimes piecing together previously unknown words after learning the language of origin, pronunciation and definition.

Some 247 finalists, all aged 15 or younger, competed in the televised national competition over three days at the DAR Constitution Hall in Washington.

-Reporting by Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus/Reuters