Scripps National Spelling Bee 2015 Results: Winners, Finalists and Funny Moments

Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam are spelling machines who seemingly know the correct letter order for every word in the English language. There was simply no way to separate the two of them Thursday during the 2015 Scripps National Spelling Bee at National Harbor, Maryland, and they naturally tied for the title.

There was no word they didn't know, steamrolling their way to the co-championship.

ESPN Stats & Info noted this wasn't the first time the event concluded with a tie: 

"

The #SpellingBee co-champions are Vanya Shivashankar and Gokul Venkatachalam 5th time (and 2nd in a row!) there were co-champions

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) May 29, 2015"

While both were more than deserving champions, Alejandro Zuniga of MLB.com had an amusing take on the outcome:

Here is a look at the 10 finalists, based on the order in which they were eliminated:

Place	Speller
1	Vanya Shivashankar
1	Gokul Venkatachalam
3	Cole Shafer-Ray
4	Siddharth Krishnakumar
5	Dev Jaiswal
6	Snehaa Kumar
7	Tejas Muthusamy
8	Paul Keaton
9	Siyona Mishra
10	Sylvie Lamontagne

While the co-champions dominated well into the evening, viewers didn't have to wait long for the first eliminations. Both Sylvie Lamontagne (word: cerastes) and Siyona Mishra (word: hacek) misspelled words in the first round. However, there were plenty of early entertaining moments.

The event's official Twitter account noted that Mishra had some fun before being eliminated, while Joe Heim of the Washington Post noted that Venkatachalam got to imitate his idol, LeBron James:

Sports fans likely recognized one of the words that popped up after those first two eliminations. Tejas Muthusamy needed to spell the word "billiken" and did so correctly. The billiken is the mascot for Saint Louis University, which prompted Ryan Ginn of Scout.com to share one of the statues on campus:

With mascot spelling out of the way, Paul Keaton, Muthusamy, Snehaa Kumar and Dev Jaiswal were eliminated during the middle portions of the spelling bee. Heim noted that Keaton's exit was particularly surprising for those in attendance:

However, one of the big storylines was the elimination of Jaiswal. He quickly developed into a fan favorite thanks to his energetic spirit and overall enthusiasm during interviews and while spelling. The event noted that he drew quite the response, while Katie Nolan of Fox Sports couldn't resist the opportunity to send him out with a play on words:

Jaiswal commented on his journey before the finals, telling Deborah Barfield Berry of the Clarion-Ledger: "I've blown my own mind. I'll be happy wherever I place tonight. It's just a great honor to be here."

Jaiswal was even on stage during one of the more entertaining sentences of the evening, per BuzzFeed Sports:

The crowd was still recovering from the shock of Jaiswal's exit when Siddharth Krishnakumar and Cole Shafer-Ray were eliminated. It set up the thrilling finals showdown between Shivashankar and Venkatachalam. First, Shafer-Ray's elimination came with an amusing moment as he pulled away from his mother when she went in for a consolatory kiss.

SB Nation shared a highlight, while Johnny Ginter of Eleven Warriors shared a possible thought from Shafer-Ray:

Bleacher Report's national lead writer Dan Levy set the stage for the final round after Shafer-Ray's elimination:

Writer Jack McCallum provided some insight into the pressure in the room:

Pressure or not, Shivashankar and Venkatachalam delivered perfect spellings for word after word. In fact, Venkatachalam even spelled the word "sprachgefuhl" right during the back-and-forth showdown between the two incredible spellers. If he was going to get that word right, there was really no hope for anything but a tie.

Heim put things perfectly:

In what was certainly an appropriate ending, the two spellers ended as co-champions when there simply were not enough championship-level words remaining.