Scripps National Spelling Bee 2019 Results: 8 Co-Champions Named After 20 Rounds

The Scripps National Spelling Bee has had co-champions before. It's seen spellers exhaust the list of available words. 

Just never this many.

Rishik Gandhasri, Erin Howard, Saketh Sundar, Shruthika Padhy, Sohum Sukhatankar, Abhijay Kodali, Christopher Serrao and Rohan Raja were named co-champions of the 2019 event in the early morning hours Friday after the judges called the championship after 20 rounds. 

The Scripps National Spelling Bee account shared a photo of the eight co-champions after the competition:

The competitors spelled the following words to clinch their co-championship:

Gandhasri: auslaut

Howard: erysipelas

Sundar: bougainvillea

Padhy: aiguillette

Sukhatankar: pendeloque

Kodali: palama

Serrao: cernuous

Raja: odylic

With eight spellers remaining after the 17th round, Dr. Jacques Bailly announced the unprecedented decision to call the Bee after Round 20. Dr. Bailly said there were plenty of words remaining but not enough to challenge what he called the most talented group of spellers the competition has ever seen.

This is the seventh time the spelling bee trophy has been shared. There have never been more than two co-champions before 2019, however, and Scripps may have a concerning trend on its hands. This is the fourth time in the last six years that the spelling bee has ended with co-champions, all because the words list had been exhausted. 

It's clear the competition is getting tougher than ever—that perhaps the spellers are outpacing the expansion of the dictionary.

The fact that eight of these spellers managed to battle through a grueling day of more than nine hours, watching top competitors fall by the wayside, is nothing short of amazing. Each receives $50,000 and a Scripps Cup.

The feat is nothing short of historic, and the Elite Eight will go down as the greatest group this event has ever seen.