A 12-year-old boy from Florida has won the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee after correctly spelling 29 words in 90 seconds.
Bruhat Soma, a seventh-grade student from St. Petersburg, Florida was named the winner. The spelling bee took place in Oxon Hill, Maryland. The runner-up was a sixth grader, Faizan Zaki, from Dallas. The two boys faced off in a lightning-round tiebreaker match. They had to do that before they could compete against each other in a conventional round.
This year there was the fewest number of competitors in the final round in 14 years. Soma finished the round with 29 words spelled correctly. Zaki spelled 25 words but missed four.
According to the Scripps organization, the winning word was "abseil." The word means "a descent in mountaineering by means of a rope looped over a projection above."
The 12-year-old chose sports-related charities. He will take home over $50,000 in cash and prizes. The charities Soma represented were the Rays Baseball Foundation and Rowdies Soccer Fund.
According to Scripps, the prizes for the first-place winner include a $50,000 cash prize from the organization, a $2,500 cash prize and reference library from Merriam-Webster (where the bee pulls its collection of words) and $400 worth of reference works from Encyclopædia Britannica.
That is a nice-looking trophy, eh?
"I'm still shaking," Soma said.
This wasn't his first spelling bee.
According to Soma's biography, this year's spelling bee marks his second-ever spell-off. He previously competed in 2022, tying for 163rd place, and 2023, where he tied for 74th place.
"I've been working really hard this whole year," Soma said in an interview with TODAY on Friday, May 31, revealing that he would study spelling for six hours per day on weekdays and over 10 hours per day on weekends.
"After I lost in the quarter-finals last year, I was really disappointed and I knew I had to work harder in order to win. So I worked really hard this last year. And then when I won, it was a dream come true," he added. "So I was so happy."
Under new executive leadership, participants are eliminated more quickly after its preliminary rounds.
Per the outlet, the competition began with 148 spellers on Wednesday, May 29. At the end of the first quarterfinal round, there were 59 left, and 46 of those spellers made it through a vocabulary round ahead of the semifinals.
Kudos to young Bruhat Soma. His hard work and determination paid off.
Aposiopesis. Abseil.
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 31, 2024
Watch Bruhat Soma, a seventh-grader from Tampa, Florida, win the Scripps National Spelling Bee title. The 12-year-old spelled 29 words correctly in a tiebreaker. pic.twitter.com/hA9YmwkZeV
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