Indian-American Shrey Parikh wins Scripps National Spelling Bee

INDIAN-AMERICAN student Shrey Parikh won the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Friday after spelling 32 of 35 words correctly in a 90-second spell-off round.

Parikh, 14, is an eighth-grade student at Day Creek Intermediate School in California. He correctly spelt “Bromocriptine” in the final spell-off round.

According to Merriam-Webster, bromocriptine is an alkaloid that mimics the activity of dopamine in inhibiting prolactin secretion.

Parikh defeated 12-year-old Ishaan Gupta of Frank R Conwell Middle School in Jersey City, New Jersey. Sarv Dharavane, 12, from Peachtree Charter Middle School in Tucker, Georgia, finished third.

Ishaan received USD 25,000 in prize money, while Sarv received USD 15,000.

Parikh also broke the previous spell-off record set in 2024 by Bruhat Soma, who had spelt 29 out of 30 words correctly.

“Spelling fast is what I do every day,” Shrey said after winning the competition.

Parikh, who was also a finalist in the 2024 competition, received several prizes, including USD 50,000, a commemorative medal, the Scripps Cup, USD 2,500 from Merriam-Webster, USD 1,000 in flight credits from Delta and USD 400 worth of reference works from Encyclopaedia Britannica.

The three-day competition began on Monday at D.A.R. Constitution Hall with 247 contestants from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Defence Department schools in Europe and five other countries — the Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates.

Nine contestants advanced to the finals held on Thursday evening.

Shrey and Ishaan were each given 90 seconds to spell as many words correctly as possible from the same list.

Shrey had previously competed in 2022, when he tied for 89th place, and again in 2024, when he tied for third place.

According to the biography shared by the Spelling Bee, Shrey’s hobbies include tennis, reading, maths and chess.

He also plays percussion in his school band and has played the snare drum, bass drum, timpani, toms, break drum, triangle, glockenspiel and marimba.

Shrey spends his free time solving maths problems or with his brother and sister. He has visited many countries and especially enjoys travelling to India to visit his grandparents.

One of Shrey’s achievements outside spelling was qualifying for the California state Mathcounts competition this year.

The Spelling Bee competition was first held in 1925 to test spelling, vocabulary and language skills through multiple rounds of difficult words.

Participants are generally required to be no older than 15 and must not have progressed beyond the eighth grade.

Balu Natarajan became the first Indian-origin student to win the competition in 1985. Indian-origin students have won several titles over the past four decades.

Five of the nine finalists this year were of Indian origin.