WASHINGTON, May 30 (UPI) -- U.S. spelling whiz Sameer Mishra, 13, of West Lafayette, Ind., Friday won Scripps National Spelling Bee, correctly spelling guerdon.
The competition was broadcast live from Washington on ABC, beginning with Round 8 and the remaining 12 contestants. Three contestants were left going into the final round, which is conducted from a list of 25 championship words.
Tia Thomas, 13, of Coarsegold, Calif., was knocked out on the second word of the final round, when she misspelled opificer. Sidharth Chand, 12, of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., stumbled on the fourth word of the final round, prosopopoeia.
Mishra provided a light moment in the ninth round, when he drew the word numnah and mispronounced it numbnut.
"Oh numnah," he said after asking pronouncer Dr. Jacque A. Bailly to repeat the word. "That's a relief."
In a brief interview afterward, Mishra said he was so relieved when he discovered what the word really was because there were just too many possible spellings for numbnut.
After a string of 22 correctly spelled words beginning in Round 8, four contestants were knocked out in Round 10 and four more in Round 11.
