Scripps National Spelling Bee 2015: Co-Champions Create Thrilling Finish to Bee

Vanya Shivashankar is the best speller in the world. So is Gokul Venkatachalam. The pair exhausted all 25 championship words Thursday night, giving the Scripps National Spelling bee co-champions for the second straight year.

Venkatachalam, with Shivashankar hanging off to his left on the stage, correctly spelled nunatak to close out the ceremonies. Making it all the more impressive, Venkatachalam pulled off the correct spelling without needing a language of origin or sentence use—tools often used by spellers just to give themselves a second to breathe. 

Venkatachalam needed none of it. Like Michael Jordan in the clutch, he took a deep breath and went N-U-N-A-T-A-K with a smile on his face.

"I wasn't nervous," Venkatachalam said, per Ben Nuckols of The Associated Press.

Shivashankar's final word was scherenschnitte.

The thrilling finish gave the spelling bee its fifth tie in history and second in as many years. Last year, Sriram Hathwar and Ansun Sujoe were co-champions. Shivashankar and Venkatachalam were each in that field, marking the 12th straight year the eventual champion made the television program from the previous year. Venkatachalam finished third last year. 

Cole Shafer-Ray, who finished third, was the other championship-round participant. Shafer-Ray missed his first word in the championship round, leaving Shivashankar and Venkatachalam to go back and forth with impressive display after impressive display. 

Shivashankar, whose sister, Kavya, previously won the spelling bee in 2009, was defined by her unwavering confidence. She would spell the word out first in her hand before asking for additional details, using them more often than not for confirmation of her correctness.

"Everything takes hard work and passion," Shivashankar said, per Nuckols. "That's definitely what I put in and I know Gokul put that into this endeavor as well."

Venkatachalam arguably received as much Twitter praise for his swag as he did his spelling ability. Clad in Jordan 11s, Venkatachalam was basically just a whole lot of fun. You could tell he had a confidence about himself that came from being there before. It also helps engender Internet praise whenever you're rocking Jordans, have a love of Nas and dap up your bro as soon as you reach the pinnacle of your spelling life.

Another finalist who also drew a ton of social media attention was Dev Jaiswal, who finished in fifth. Jaiswal consistently used nearly all two minutes of his allotted time and was a riot whenever the camera was on him. He was also hanging around on another rap-related spelling bee moment, as his desire to hear a word said in a sentence led to this Drake reference:

Overall, the back-to-back ties situation is one that might need to be addressed. There was a drought of more than 50 years between co-champions until new rules ostensibly put a time limit on the competition. While no one wants these poor kids spelling until they faint and the championship word limit makes for easier-to-program television, there's at least some dilution if every year ends in a tie.

For now, it appears to be a happy accident. Shivashankar and Venkatachalam were merely too good for any word to trip them up. It's possible they'd still be spelling now if we'd given them the chance. And with the national television lights shining and his opponent standing right next to him, Venkatachalam got to have a truly clutch spelling bee moment.

Even if you don't love the tie, things like that make it all worth it.