OXON HILL, Md. — They couldn’t be rattled. They couldn’t be denied. Gokul Venkatachalam and Vanya Shivashankar had worked too hard and come close too many times not to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
So they shared the title, making history in two different ways.
Until last year, the bee hadn’t ended in a tie for 52 years. Now it has happened for an unprecedented two years running.
And Vanya, 13, of Olathe, Kan., is the first sibling of a past champion to win. Her sister, Kavya, won in 2009.
Vanya’s final word was “scherenschnitte,” which means the art of cutting paper into decorative designs. After being informed he’d be the co-champion if he got the next word right, Gokul didn’t even bother to ask the definition before spelling “nunatak.” For the record, it means a hill or mountain completely surrounded by glacial ice.
Asked what he thought when he got the word, Gokul said, “Me and Vanya were going to be the champions.”
Gokul, 14, of Chesterfield, Mo., finished third last year, behind the two co-champions.
“Everything takes hard work and passion,” Vanya said. “That’s definitely what I put in, and I know Gokul put that into this endeavor as well.”
Both are eighth-graders, so it was their last chance.
Vanya and Gokul went head-to-head for 10 rounds before the list of 25 championship words was exhausted.
The words included: bouquetière, caudillismo, thamakau, scytale, Bruxellois and pyrrhuloxia.
