A 14-year-old from Superior advanced to Thursday’s semifinals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee after cruising through the bee’s first four rounds today.
Competing in the annual bee at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C., for the fourth-straight year, Maithreyi Gopalakrishnan passed through the morning’s written test and first oral round before successfully spelling two more words – tyrannical and salinelle – in rounds three and four.
Gopalakrishnan, representing the Boulder Camera , attends Peak to Peak Charter School in Lafayette.
Jake Smith, a seventh-grader from Highlands Ranch, completed the first three rounds without trouble Wednesday. But the Rocky Mountain News-sponsored speller slipped up in the fourth round on piroplasmosis, which he spelled pyrrhiplasmosis.
Smith, 12, was competing in the national bee for the first time.
