In a surprising twist of events, Scripps National Spelling Bee 2014 ends with not one, but two grand winners-- the first tie in 52 years! On Thursday, Sriram Hathwar, 14, hailing from Painted Post, New York, and Ansun Sujoe, 13, of Fort Worth, Texas took home $33,000 in cash and prizes each and shared ownership of the Scripps National Spelling Bee 2014 championship trophy.
Both contestants were declared winners after correctly spelling nearly 25 championship words in a row. Hathwar, supposedly in the lead, was unable to spell the word that would have secured his spot as the grand winner: corpsbruder, a word of German origin that pertains to one's brother-in-arms. By misspelling his final championship word, he gave his opponent the chance to make the win. Unfortunately, Sujoe faltered at the end when he misspelled 'antegropelos', which means waterproof leggings.
As co-champions of Scripps National Spelling Bee 2014, Sujoe and Hathwar took home cash and a variety of gifts from sponsors amounting to $33,000. Their first photo since winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee 2014 championship featured both boys clutching onto the grand trophy while surrounded by confetti.
When asked for his thoughts about winning Scripps National Spelling Bee 2014 alongside an opponent, Hathwar said, "The competition was against the dictionary, not against each other. I'm so happy to share this trophy with him."
Sujoe echoed the same sentiment, "I was pretty happy when I made the finals, and now I'm even happier that I'm a co-champion."
Both boys are the bee's latest co-champions since 1962 and the fourth co-champions since 1925. Both returning contenders of the Spelling Bee, Hathwar finished third place in the previous year's Scripps National Spelling Bee contest while Sujoe barely reached last year's semi-finals round.
Other winners of the Scripps National Spelling Bee 2014 include 3rd-placer Gokul Venkatachalam of Chesterfield, Missouri and fourth-placer Ashwin Veeramani of North Royalton, Ohio.
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