14-year-old Zaila Avant-garde from New Orleans, Louisiana, cruised to victory with the word ‘murraya’, a type of tropical tree after having spelled out the words ‘querimonious’ and ‘solidungulate’. She stated that spelling was a hobby and that her real passion lies in becoming a basketball pro. She already holds three world records for dribbling multiple balls at once and even appeared besides NBA megastar Stephen Curry in an advertisement.
Zaila faced off against 11 finalists on Thursday to win the title and gained a first prize of $50,000 at the event in Orlando, Florida. She defeated 12-year-old Chaitra Thummala of Frisco, Texas in the final round.
Since 2008, it was the first time that the champion or co-champion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee was not of South Asian descent. Earlier during the competition, Zaila had hesitated over the word ‘nepeta’, a herbal mint but still managed to spell it correctly. The home-schooled teen told New Orleans paper, “For spelling, I usually try to do about 13,000 words [per day] and that usually takes about seven hours or so. We don’t let it go way too overboard, of course, I’ve got school and basketball to do.”
Zaila is the second black girl to win the tournament since Jody-Anne Maxwell, of Jamaica was crowned champion in 1998 at the age of 12. In 2019, eight children came joint-first for the first time in spelling bee’s history. Last year competition was cancelled due to the pandemic.
