On Thursday, an Indian-American Ananya Vinay, aged 12, has won the 90th US Scripps National Spelling Bee competition while taking home the cash prize of $40,000. Since 2013, this is the first time that the bee competition has announced a single champion rather than ending in a tie. The bee competition had a written tiebreaker test ready in this year. “It’s like a dream come true, I’m so happy right now,” Vinay said  after she was handed with the trophy in the competition. Vinay is the 13th consecutive Indian-American to win the bee competition.

Vinay, a sixth grader in the Fresno, has won the bee competition by spelling the word ‘marocain’, which is a word derived from French and is used to refer to a dress fabric, which is made of the ribbed crepe. Vinay had been competing for 12 hours in the bee competition, which was held in the Washington’s Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center.

“Congratulations to our 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion, Ananya Vinay. What a fantastic performance! She played to win and win she did,” the official account of the National Spelling Bee has tweeted. Apart from the word ‘marocain’, Vinay has also spelled the words like gifblaar, wayzgoose, tschefuncte, gesith, gargouillade and also cecidomyia correctly.

The runner-up of the bee competition Rohan Rajeev could not spell the word “marram,” a Scandinavian-derived word used for beach grass. A veteran speller Tejas Muthusamy of the Glen Allen, Virginia, made his third top-10 finish but he missed the title with the five spellers left.

Previously, Vinay has won thrice the title of California State Elementary Spelling Bee competition. A group of 15 spellers have competed in the competition on Thursday, out of 291 contestants who had qualified for the National Spelling Bee competition.

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Mrudula Duddempudi.