Of course, we know the National Spelling Bee happens every year, but how often do you see Co-Champions at this event? Not very often, and it has been 52 years since the last Co-Champions (and Akeelah and the Bee does not count, since that was fictional). The other three times there have been Co-Champions were in 1950 - Diana Reynard and Colquitt Dean (meticulosity), 1957 - Sandra Owen and Dana Bennett (schappe), and 1962 - Nettie Crawford and Michael Day (esquamulose).
Congratulations to Sriram Hathwar and Ansun Sujoe! These two, after a grueling 22 rounds of the National Spelling Bee and 16 rounds of the Championship Finals, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Their winning words were stichomythia and feuilleton, respectively (the Scripps Spelling Bee DS game actually has feuilleton).
In Round 16, Sriram and Ansun both misspelled their words (corpsbruder and antigropelos, respectively). Sriram misspelled his word as korbruiter and Ansun misspelled his word as antigropolos. My friend and I called this an Akeelah and the Bee moment (except that Sriram and Ansun receive different words - unlike Akeelah and the Bee when the spellers receive the same word, after one misspells it; and we're pretty sure that the Sriram and Ansun weren't misspelling on purpose, unlike in the movie when the two spellers misspelled on purpose because they want the other person to win).
Corpsbruder is French + German. The French was corps (can be defined as a group of people, especially in the military), and the German was bruder (which literally means brother). The definition used was: a close comrade. If you think deeply, comrade can mostly associate with the words friend, ally, etc. and you know it's French, so most likely you could assume corps then the second half is the German word bruder. Most people who have brothers like to keep them close, or you have a really good friend who's like a brother, so if you know the German word, bruder would probably come to mind.
The other word was antigropelos. Ansun got most of the word right, except that he spelled the part of the word as polos (those pesky schwas!). It means waterproof leggings; The Greek root -pelos means mud, but I do not know if he could have gotten that out of waterproof leggings, but it seems like spellers have to think out of the box.
I will do an analysis this weekend (hopefully) on the other words from the Bee. There were a lot of words that I knew and a lot that left me thinking (including the ones I didn't know).
Another Akeelah and the Bee moment: If you've seen the movie, you may remember that after the spellers misspell that they continue going on until the end and are declared Co-Champions; this is what happened at this Bee; Ansun and Sriram are 7th and 8th graders, just like the two champions in the movie (Akeelah and Dylan), except that Ansun went to nationals twice and Sriram made it five times (missing only 2010 and 2012); in the movie Akeelah won on her first try, and Dylan - on his third.
Ansun went from not advancing to semifinals in 2013 to winning the Bee in 2014, which is also extremely rare, but it can happen. He's also the first 7th grader since 2000 to win the National Spelling Bee (when it was won by George Thampy); Sriram is the five-peat since 2006 to win the Bee (when it was won by Kerry Close).
Congratulations spellers! This is one of the greatest and rarest Bees that have occurred in history. I'm pretty sure Ansun and Sriram are elated, yet knackered!
Good luck with future Bees and endeavors!
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