Scripps National Spelling Bee 2017 Results: Winner, Finalists and Funny Moments

Ananya Vinay is the 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee winner after correctly spelling the word marocain after the 20th championship round.

There have been co-champions in each of the last three years, but the 12-year-old broke the streak to take home the $40,000 prize over second-place Rohan Rajeev.

While the 90th edition of this competition began with 291 spellers, one stood above the rest Thursday in Washington, D.C., to bring home the title.

Vinay, Rajeev, Shourav Dasari and Mira Dedhia were the final four in the competition, and it took a long time for any of them to drop out with several rounds of perfect spelling.

Dasari quickly became a fan favorite, thanks to confident turns like this one:

"

Shourav just dunked from the three point line. Shourav in 2

— jay kang (@jaycaspiankang) June 2, 2017"

However, he was the next one eliminated on the word struldbrug. Dedhia quickly followed him out, leaving just two competitors.

Vinay and Rajeev then battled one-on-one with both remaining calm and collected in each round.

Those watching described the battle:

Rajeev finally made his first mistake on marram, a surprise after succeeding on much longer words throughout the competition.

Vinay succeeded on gifblaar in the 20th championship round and then won the title on marocain.

The event's official account captured the winning moment:

"

#Speller264 Ananya Vinay is the 2017 Scripps National Bee Champion. The 12-year-old spelled "marocain" correctly to win. #spellingbee pic.twitter.com/tZ76dLE4k5

— NationalSpellingBee (@ScrippsBee) June 2, 2017"

Sreeniketh Vogoti was considered a top contender after finishing seventh last year, but he failed to spell clafouti correctly and ended up in 14th place.

Ben Nuckols of the Associated Press noted none of the top performers from 2016 were able to improve upon their finishes:

Tejas Muthusamy was also one of the favorites to win but finished in sixth, much to the surprise of the ballroom. The crowd gave him a standing ovation as he walked off the stage.

Considering how the last two performed, the finish was far from a fluke.

While the competition was fierce throughout, it wasn't without some levity. There was plenty of both intentional and unintentional humor from the young challengers on the biggest stage of their lives:

The family members were sometimes the most entertaining part of the competition:

There were 15 finalists remaining heading into Thursday night, but the earlier competitions provided some memorable moments as well. Maggie Sheridan came through with a buzzer-beater correct spelling of whirlicote after struggling to understand the word:

Edith Fuller also made history as the youngest competitor ever at just six years old. She even spelled a relatively tough word correctly:

Although she was eliminated before the finals, she will likely be back with plenty of years of eligibility remaining.

Still, Ananya was the star of the day after cruising through the English language with relative ease.