OXON HILL, Md. — Snigdha Nandipati heard a few words she didn't know during the National Spelling Bee, but never when she stepped to the microphone.
Calm and collected throughout, the 14-year-old from San Diego spelled "guetapens," a French-derived word that means ambush, snare or trap, to win the 85th Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday night. She beat out eight other finalists in the nerve-wracking, brain-busting competition.
After she spelled the word, she looked from side to side, as if unsure her accomplishment was real, and, oddly, she was not immediately announced as the winner. Applause built slowly, and a few pieces of confetti trickled out before showering her. Then her 10-year-old brother ran on stage and embraced her, and she beamed.
"I knew it. I'd seen it before," Nandipati said of the winning word. "I just wanted to ask everything I could before I started spelling."
A coin collector and Sherlock Holmes fan, Nandipati aspires to become a physician or neurosurgeon. She also plays violin and is fluent in Telugu, a language spoken in southeastern India.
A semifinalist last year, Nandipati became the fifth consecutive Indian-American winner and 10th in the last 14 years, a run that began in 1999 when Nupur Lala won and was later featured in the documentary "Spellbound."
Wearing a white polo shirt with a gold necklace peeking out of the collar, the bespectacled, braces-wearing teen never showed much emotion while spelling, working her way meticulously through each word. Only a few of the words given to other spellers were unfamiliar to her,
The bee came down to two female spellers, Nandipati and Stuti Mishra, who misspelled "schwarmerei" in Round 12, leaving the door open for Nandipati if she spelled her next word correctly.
Nandipati is an aspiring psychiatrist or neurosurgeon and is the 5th consecutive Indian-American winner of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Her prizes include $30,000 in cash, a trophy, a $2,500 savings bond, a $5,000 scholarship, $2,600 in reference works from the Encyclopedia Britannica and an online language course.
Calm and collected throughout, the 14-year-old from San Diego spelled "guetapens," a French-derived word that means ambush, snare or trap, to win the 85th Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday night. She beat out eight other finalists in the nerve-wracking, brain-busting competition.
After she spelled the word, she looked from side to side, as if unsure her accomplishment was real, and, oddly, she was not immediately announced as the winner. Applause built slowly, and a few pieces of confetti trickled out before showering her. Then her 10-year-old brother ran on stage and embraced her, and she beamed.
"I knew it. I'd seen it before," Nandipati said of the winning word. "I just wanted to ask everything I could before I started spelling."
A coin collector and Sherlock Holmes fan, Nandipati aspires to become a physician or neurosurgeon. She also plays violin and is fluent in Telugu, a language spoken in southeastern India.
A semifinalist last year, Nandipati became the fifth consecutive Indian-American winner and 10th in the last 14 years, a run that began in 1999 when Nupur Lala won and was later featured in the documentary "Spellbound."
Wearing a white polo shirt with a gold necklace peeking out of the collar, the bespectacled, braces-wearing teen never showed much emotion while spelling, working her way meticulously through each word. Only a few of the words given to other spellers were unfamiliar to her,
The bee came down to two female spellers, Nandipati and Stuti Mishra, who misspelled "schwarmerei" in Round 12, leaving the door open for Nandipati if she spelled her next word correctly.
Nandipati is an aspiring psychiatrist or neurosurgeon and is the 5th consecutive Indian-American winner of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Her prizes include $30,000 in cash, a trophy, a $2,500 savings bond, a $5,000 scholarship, $2,600 in reference works from the Encyclopedia Britannica and an online language course.
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