For 2nd year in row, 2 top spellers tangle to tie

Vanya Shivashankar (left), 13, and Gokul Venkatachalam, 14, finished the competition Thursday with Vanya spelling “scherenschnitte” and Gokul nailing “nunatak.”
Vanya Shivashankar (left), 13, and Gokul Venkatachalam, 14, finished the competition Thursday with Vanya spelling “scherenschnitte” and Gokul nailing “nunatak.”

OXON HILL, Md. -- Gokul Venkatachalam and Vanya Shivashankar had worked too hard and come close too many times not to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday.

So they shared the title, making history in two ways.

The bee hadn't ended in a tie for 52 years -- until last year. Now it has happened for an unprecedented two years running.

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, 14, of Chesterfield, Mo., 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 -- who finished third last year, behind the two co-champions -- said, "Me and Vanya were going to be the champions."

Both are eighth-graders, so it was their last chance. Vanya was competing in the bee for the fifth and final time. Her sister, Kavya, now a sophomore at Columbia University, competed four times, which means the Shivashankar family has made the trip nine of the past 10 years.

"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."

Proving their superiority over even their toughest competitors, Vanya and Gokul went head to head for 10 rounds before the list of 25 championship words was exhausted.

The words included bouquetiere, caudillismo, thamakau, scytale, Bruxellois and pyrrhuloxia. Vanya appeared to struggle only with the Fijian-derived thamakau, which is a type of outrigger canoe.

Cole Shafer-Ray, 14, of Norman, Okla., making his first appearance in the finals, finished third.

A Section on 05/29/2015

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