In A Dramatic Finish, Harini Logan Wins 2022 Scripps National Spelling Bee

In A Dramatic Finish, Harini Logan Wins 2022 Scripps National Spelling Bee

Harini Logan, 14, from San Antonio, Texas, celebrates winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee with ... [+] her family,. If this had been a baseball game, like the Little League World Series, the only other national event where middle schoolers command the spotlight, it would have headed to extra innings. Following two strong contestants going toe-to-toe for 18 rounds that ended in a draw, Thursday's Scripps National Spelling Bee ended in a first: a spell-off pitting 14-year-old Harini Logan and 12-year-old Vikram Raju. The two had 90 seconds to spell as many words correctly as possible. Each contestant rattled off more than 18 spellings during the rapid-fire round, and judges had to consult the video to determine who had the most correct words. Raju, the runner-up, spelled 15 words correctly in the spell-off, answering a bit slower than Logan, who barely paused to breathe while confidently spelling words most viewers had probably never heard of. It was, perhaps, a fitting finish to a Bee that had provided more drama than any in recent memory with two reinstatements during the finals. The lightning round seemed designed to cleanse the memory of 2019, when the three-hour event ended in an eight-way tie