Tampa preteen clinches National Spelling Bee title

A seventh-grader from Tampa, Florida, is the winner of the 2024 Scripps National Spelling Bee championship.

The competition on Thursday night was a nail-biter, initially ending in a tie. However, Bruhat Soma, 12, emerged victorious by spelling 29 words correctly in 90 seconds in a “spell-off.” That was nine more words than the second-place winner, Faizan Zaki.

Before the competition, Soma stated that he was nervous and felt pressure to win because of his previous performances, which included not losing a spelling bee in eight months, the Associated Press reported.

“I was pretty confident that I had a chance at winning because I’ve been working so hard,” Soma said. “And I really wanted to win. That’s why I practiced the spell-off so much.”

He said he practiced doing the spell-off every day for six months.

As champion, Bruhat received over $50,000 in cash and prizes, along with a trophy to commemorate his efforts.

This year’s spelling bee was slightly different for Scripps since it advanced to a tiebreaker. By doing so, the rules specified that the contest winner would be the contestant who spelled the most words correctly in 90 seconds, as mentioned above, the Associated Press reported. The word that ended up being the winning word was “abseil,” which means “descent in mountaineering by means of a rope looped over a projection above.”

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Previously, Soma won the “Words of Wisdom” spelling bee, which was hosted by Remer, a former speller and study guide author, according to the Associated Press. He also won the “SpellPundit” bee and a first-of-its-kind online spelling bee.

“I always want to win. And this was, like, my main goal,” Bruhat said. “It didn’t matter if I won all those other bees. This is what I was aiming for. So I’m just really happy that I won this.”