87th Scripps National Spelling Bee

There were 281 spellers this year, made up of 139 boys and 142 girls.[1] 208 were new national bee contestants. The youngest competitor, at 8 years old, was Hussain A. Godhrawala from South Carolina. The age split was: age 8 (1); age 9 (3); age 10 (7); age 11 (26); age 12 (55); age 13 (98); age 14 (90); age 15 (1). 190 spellers attended public schools, 52 private, 19 parochial, 9 were home schooled, and 9 attended charter schools.[1]

Both Sujoe and Hathwar spelled their words incorrectly in Round 16 of the championship round. Hathwar misspelled the word corpsbruder, meaning a close comrade. However, Sujoe was unable to take the advantage of the slip-up, misspelling antigropelos, meaning waterproof leggings.[4]

For the rest of the 25-word championship list they spelled every word correctly. In the final round, Hathwar correctly spelled stichomythia and Sujoe correctly spelled feuilleton, exhausting the list of words. As co-champions, Hathwar and Sujoe were the seventh consecutive Indian-Americans to win the competition.[5] It was the first time the competition ended in co-champions in over 50 years, since the 1962 bee.[6]

Hathwar was appearing in the national bee for the fifth time. He had been the youngest participant ever to date when he appeared as a young 8-year-old in the 2008 bee.[7] He was eliminated in the preliminary rounds that year. In 2009 he finished 37th. In 2011 he finished 6th, and he finished third in 2013.[8] His younger brother Jairam was co-winner in 2016.

The top prize was $30,000 this year, which each of the co-winners received due to the tie. Third place was $7,500.[9]