National Spelling Bee Ends In An 8-Way Tie Resulting In First-Ever ‘Octo-Champs’

The Scripps National Spelling Bee delivered a thrilling show Thursday night with eight spellers who were prepared for any word thrown their way. Confronted with a diminishing word list and an amazing group of spellers that never gave up, Scripps gave up and declared the eight of them co-champions.

The eight co-champions spelled the final 47 words correctly in their historic walk-off victory. Bee pronouncer Jacques Bailly said, “We do have plenty of words remaining on our list. But we will soon run out of words that will possibly challenge you, the most phenomenal collection of super spellers in the history of this competition.”

50 CELEBRITIES WHO DIED IN 2018 – TRIBUTE SLIDESHOW

The winners, who named themselves “octo-champs,” were: Rishik Gandhasri, Erin Howard, Saketh Sundar, Shruthika Padhy, Sohum Sukhatankar, Abhijay Kodali, Christopher Serrao and Rohan Raja.

Each speller was given the full $50,000 cash prize.