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Co-champions crowned at 2015 Scripps National Spelling Bee

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For the second year in a row, the Scripps National Spelling Bee has crowned co-champions.

Just like in 2014, the 2015 championship came down to a slugfest between a pair of elite spellers. No excuses, no errors, no mercy.

Gokul Venkatachalam, 14, and Vanya Shivashankar, 13, stayed steady killing it as the difficulty increased and their competitors fell by the wayside. The two finalists had made a combined nine appearances in the national championships, and that experience and talent shone through as Round 11, the championship round, began.

While Shivashankar took her time, on occasion looking concerned, Venkatachalam came out firing each round, answering almost immediately when the word allowed. Both strategies proved successful, with neither competitor erring through the entire championship round.

The word list to determine a champion was hardly elementary, but the co-champs were flawless:

  • Shivashankar - bouquetiere
  • Venkatachalam - caudillismo
  • Shivashankar - thamakau
  • Venkatachalam - scytale
  • Shivashankar - tantieme
  • Venkatachalam - cypseline
  • Shivashankar - urgrund
  • Venkatachalam - filicite
  • Shivashankar - myrmotherine
  • Venkatachalam - sprachgefuhl
  • Shivashankar - zimocca
  • Venkatachalam - nixtamal
  • Shivashankar - hippocrepiform
  • Venkatachalam - paroemiology
  • Shivashankar - scacchite
  • Venkatachalam - pipsissewa
  • Shivashankar - bruxellois
  • Venkatachalam - pyrrhuloxia
  • Shivashankar - scherenschnitte
  • Venkatachalam - nunatak

Shivashankar, an eighth-grader who has won Lifetime's "Child Genius" reality show, has a great spelling pedigree, as her sister Kavya won the 2009 title. The title, or co-title, will return to the family and the state of Kansas.

Venkatachalam, an enormous fan of LeBron James and Nas, won fans on social media with his casual approach to the proceedings, including his choice of shoe for the big day. He'll bring his half of the trophy home to St. Louis.

Secret spelling bee handshake

2014 marked the first time co-champions had been crowned since 1962. Back-to-back splits of the trophy, with increasingly difficult word lists, may require some sort of tweak to the format. Or Venkatachalam can just demand a rapid-fire spell-off next season.

While the final was incredibly entertaining, it was also a disappointing result for fans, who saw The People's Champ, Dev Jaiswal, eliminated late in the game. The affable 13-year-old had quickly become a favorite for his entertaining pre-commercial vignettes, his on-stage charm, and his penchant for beating the buzzer by narrowly getting a word in before his two minutes expired.

He also gained quick viral notability, with one of his requests for a word to be used in a sentence resulting in a reference to Drake's next mixtape.

g33's post on Vine

"One word at a time," Jaiswal had said of how he handles the pressure before Thursday's final.

Jaiswal was eliminated on the word iridocyclitis, but even someone with that affliction - inflammation of the iris and ciliary body - could see that Big Dev was the real winner. Of our hearts.

The full list of finals eliminations was as follows:

  • 3. Cole Shafer-Ray - acritarch
  • 4. Siddharth Krishnakumar - minhag
  • 5. Dev Jaiswal - iridocyclitis
  • 6. Snehaa Ganesh Kumar - oflag
  • 7. Tejas Muthusamy - tartarean
  • 8. Paul Keaton - poikilitic
  • 9. Siyona Mishra - hacek
  • 10. Sylvie Lamontagne - cerastes

Some contestants took their eliminations better than others:

Cole Denies Mom The Kiss On TV

Until next year, aloha, dudes.

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