How eight middle schoolers "toppled" the Scripps National Spelling Bee

The Atlantic

This year's historic eight-way Spelling Bee tie was bound to happen, says Ben Zimmer. "As the quality of the top contestants at the national bee has ramped up dramatically in recent years, Scripps has struggled to keep pace," he says. "For three straight years, from 2014 to 2016, the final round ended in a two-way tie, after the co-champions exhausted the championship word list—a list of 25 of the most challenging words kept in reserve for the end of the competition. Scripps changed the rules in 2017, instituting a written test that would be used as a final tiebreaker. This year, they announced they were ditching the tiebreaker test, again allowing for co-champions. But the rules contemplated only the possibility of up to three spellers still battling it out at the end, certainly not eight."

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