Zaila Avant-garde becomes first African American to win 2021 Spelling Bee
Indian-Americans come 2nd and 3rd
Washington: Zaila Avant-garde, a 14-year-old basketball prodigy, has won the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee, becoming the first African American contestant to win in 93 editions of the prestigious competition.
Indian-Americans, who have been dominating the National Spelling Bee for years, had to be satisfied with the 2nd and 3rd positions. Chaitra Thummala, a 12-year-old from San Francisco and Bhavana Madini, 13, from New York won the second and third place at the keenly-fought competition, which was attended by US First Lady Jill Biden.
Avant-garde correctly spelt Murraya - a genus of tropical Asiatic and Australian trees having pinnate leaves and flowers to win the competition and USD 50,000 prize money on Thursday.
"It was the smile and twirls for us! After tying for 370th place in 2019, #Speller133 Zaila Avant-garde wins the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Congrats to all of our spellers. We're proud of everyone's poise and courage in facing the dictionary. #SpellingBee #TheBeeIsBack," Scripps National Spelling Bee tweeted after the competition, which was not held last year due to the raging COVID-19 pandemic.
Avant-garde outlasted a field of 11 finalists, including Indian-Americans, to win the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee title and the first-place prize of USD 50,000 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida.
The 8th-grader also became the first Louisiana resident and the first African-American to win the title in the competition's 93-year history.
The only Black winner before was Jody-Anne Maxwell, representing Jamaica in 1998, CNN reported.
A basketball prodigy, Avant-garde holds three Guinness World Records for her ability to dribble multiple basketballs at a time.
She hopes to one day play in the Women's National Basketball Association.
Avant-garde previously competed in 2019, according to her bio on the bee's website.
She is an avid reader who demonstrated a strong interest in words from a very early age. Beyond her love for words and language, she enjoys learning new things, playing basketball, listening to music and podcasts, and hanging out with her family, it said.
The National Bee is a high-profile, high-pressure endurance test as much as a nerd spelling match and spellers spend months preparing for it.
Jill Biden congratulated Avant-garde on her historic win.
"Congratulations Zaila!!!," she tweeted.
Jill, a community college educator, previously attended the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee finals when it was held in Washington, DC.
Over the past 20 years, Indian-Americans have been dominating the Spelling Bee contest even though they comprise only about 1 per cent of the US population.
It was the first time since 2008 that at least one champion or co-champion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee was not of South Asian descent, the Associated Press reported.
The Bee was cancelled in 2020 - for the first time since World War II - due to the coronavirus pandemic. But there were eight co-champions in 2019, seven of whom were Indian-Americans, bringing the total number of Indian-American champions since 1999 to 26.
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Woman, 2 sons found dead in Delhi home; suicide suspected
New Delhi (PTI): Three members of a family were found dead inside their home in southeast Delhi's Kalkaji on Friday, with police suspecting it to be a case of suicide, officials said.
Police said the incident came to light around 2.47 pm when a police team reached the premises to execute a court order related to possession of the property. When repeated knocks went unanswered, the staff used a duplicate key to open the door.
Inside, officers found Anuradha Kapoor (52) and her sons, Ashish Kapoor (32) and Chaitanya Kapoor (27), hanging from the ceiling, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast) Hemant Tiwari said in a statement. All three were declared dead.
A handwritten note was recovered from the room, suggesting the family had been struggling with depression.
"The handwritten note indicates emotional distress faced by the family due to which the family may have taken the extreme step," the officer said.
The bodies have been shifted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) mortuary for post-mortem and other legal formalities under Section 194 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), police said.
Residents of the neighbourhood said they were shocked to learn about the deaths, adding that the family kept largely to themselves.
Pankaj Kashyap, a resident of Girinagar, said he learnt about the deaths while leaving for work. "I live and work here and was leaving for work when I saw many people standing outside and talking. That is how I got to know that three people had committed suicide. I also saw several police vehicles outside, but I do not know much beyond that," he said.
Baldev, another neighbour, said the family had been living in the newly constructed house for around two years. "We only knew that a mother and her two children lived there. They had moved into the newly built house around two years ago. We did not interact much with them. Today we heard that all three have committed suicide, and whatever we know is based on what people here are saying," he said.
Another neighbour, Ramesh Kumar, claimed the family had earlier attempted suicide.
"About fifteen to twenty days ago, the two sons in the family had attempted suicide and police and ambulances had come. That was when I first got to know who they were. I do not recognise them by face, but we saw the ambulances and police take the two sons that day. Today again we saw ambulances and police arriving, so everyone came out to see what had happened. I do not know how long they had been living here, but this is all we know," he said.
Police said they are examining the family's financial condition, social circumstances, and other factors that may have contributed to the incident. Further investigation is underway.
