Domination of Indian-American children in US Spelling Bee continues

The National Spelling Bee has ended in a tie for the 2nd straight year: Indian-Americans Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam are co-champions, cementing the community’s hold on an event which has come to be dubbed the Indian Super Bowl.

The National Spelling Bee has ended in a tie for the second straight year: Indian-Americans Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam are co-champions, cementing the community’s hold on an event which has come to be dubbed the Indian Super Bowl.

Vanya-Shivashankar-right-13-of-Olathe-and-Gokul-Venkatachalam-14-of-St-Louis-shake-hands-as-co-champions-after-winning-the-finals-of-the-Scripps-National-Spelling-Bee-in-Oxon-Hill-AP-Photo

Shivashankar and Venkatachalam won the contest easily Thursday night after the pronouncer ran out of words lined up to decide a dragged out final round.

Shivashankar’s victory set an event record as the first by two members of the same family — her sister Kavya Shivashankar, who was there in the audience, won in 2009.

Shivashankar's final word was "scherenschnitte." After being informed he'd be the co-champion if he got the next word right, Venkatachalam didn't even bother to ask the definition before spelling "nunatak."

Venkatachalam finished third last year.

Indian-Americans have won the contest eight years running now, and twice jointly in consecutive years, and 14 times in all, since the community’s first in 985, Balu Natrajan.