A 14-year-old Californian wins the Scripps National Spelling Bee in a lightning cross game
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Shrey Parikh felt the pressure of coming into the Scripps National Spelling Bee as the favorite, but her confidence showed every time she got a word she knew. When the bee came down and caught the lightning against Ishaan Gupta, Shrey left no doubt.
The 14-year-old turned a tense, high-stakes final into a tough competition on Thursday night, racing through a 90-second “spell-off” and getting 32 words right to be crowned the best young player in the English language. The Guptas spelled 25 words correctly in the tiebreaker.
An eighth-grader in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., Parikh finished third in 2024 but lost his school bee last year while battling the flu.
He has dominated the bee circuit ever since, winning numerous online contests against many of the same kids he took out this week in the nation’s capital.
Gupta, a 12-year-old seventh grader from Jersey City, NJ, is a semifinalist this year. He played better than other veteran spellers in the finals and still has another year to qualify.
Road to the final
Spells are eligible for advancement through regional bees hosted by sponsors throughout the US
The contestants must go through the first two rounds, where they are asked about names from a list provided in advance. There is a spelling round and one multiple choice vocabulary round.
The finalists will be tested on spelling and written vocabulary, and the top 100 finishers will advance to the quarterfinals. The test words, and all subsequent rounds, are taken from the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary.
In all quarterfinals and semifinals, spellings are performed on the microphone using oral spelling questions or vocabulary questions.
About a dozen spellers usually make it to the finals, although this year only nine made it.
Spells from 6 countries, including Canada
This year’s bee had 247 entries representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, three US territories and five other countries: The Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates. After the first rounds, 167 remained, and that field was cut to 95 quarterfinals after a written spelling and vocabulary test.
The top finisher in 2025 was Sarv Dharavane of Dunwoody, Ga., who finished third last year as an 11-year-old fifth-grader.
This year he got perfect marks in the written test and was one of the players who made it to the finals on Thursday.
Hearing the announcement confirming his victory in the spell-off, Parikh turned and shook his opponent’s hand.
The winning coaching staff includes Sam Evans, who coached three previous champions, and Sohum Sukhatankar, who also won the 2019 championship. Parikh relentlessly competed with other top spellers, used advanced study guides and tried different finishes which led to a few unexpected exits in his long career as a speller.
This year’s former spellers, coaches and other observers described this year’s team as unusually strong, saying they showed their skills early by coming in at 18 to start 18, blowing away the first round of spelling and vocabulary. Aiden Meng of Orinda, Calif., ended that streak when he tripped over the “catometope” to start the second round of the spell.
Then the crowd roared as the band blared out two ideas about how it could conquer all: Oliver Halkett on “Faesulae” and Zwe Spacetime on “vaesite,” words with a beguiling mix of origins and vowel sounds.
Along with his trophy, Parikh will receive US$52,500 in cash, reference books from Encyclopaedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster, a custom mug and commemorative medal, and US$1,000 in flight credit from Delta Air Lines.
