Anurag slays appoggiatura

Education | Homeschoolers and hard-working Asian descendants continue national spelling bee domination | Priya Abraham

WASHINGTON, D.C.–Only at the very end did 13-year-old speller Anurag Kashyap lose his cool. Exsiccosis did not dismay him in Round 17, and he slew ornithorhynchous in Round 12. But so stunned was he when he won the 78th Annual Scripps National Spelling Bee, he shielded his face with his contestant number and dissolved into tears.

If Anurag was overwhelmed, it may have been because the whole room was cheering for him. Spellers knocked out earlier yelped in anticipation when the pronouncer declared appoggiatura as his final word, knowing it was a cinch for the eighth-grader from San Diego. Parents sprung to their feet in applause and remained standing as he hoisted the champion's gold trophy.

With his father at turns grinning and mopping his eyes with a striped handkerchief, Anurag could initially find only one word to describe his emotion. "Ecstaticness," he said, before the new spelling champ corrected himself. "I went up against 272 great competitors . . . this competition would be nothing without the camaraderie."