Anamika Veeramani is a 14-year-old Ohio girl that won this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee Friday, June 4.
The word that made her this year’s champion is “stromuhr”, an instrument used for measuring the quantity of blood that flows per unit of time through a blood vessel. With the complexity of this word’s structure, Veeramani is considered a real spelling champion.
Soon after receiving her trophy, she shouted, “Go Cavs!” a little bit awkward because the last major sports championship that won by Cleveland was in the year 1964; however, with Anamika’s championship, they can brag about the champion speller.
The eighth-grader Anamika goes to Incarnate Word Academy and also plays golf, loves to dance and someday dreaming of studying at the prestigious Harvard University to pursue a career as cardiovascular surgeon, according to the Associated Press.
She said that the feeling was too weird; adding up that it was an incredible experience. Anamika was tied for fifth in last year’s spelling bee. In the last 12 years, she was the eighth Indian-American winner of the said spelling bee championship.
However, this year’s spelling bee causes a controversy. The semi-finals started Friday afternoon (June 4) with 19 more contestants left, but nine were eliminated so fast that they started to be anxious they would not have adequate spellers for the primetime televise. As a result, they acknowledged the 10 remaining contestants on the stage as finalists, although the six of them have not yet spelled a word in the semi-finals.
In the meantime, NBC celebrity Shaquille O’Neal was in the building. He took pictures with the 10 remaining contestants and then dare last year’s spelling bee champion, 14-year-old Kavya Shivashankar to spell out on his Shaq Vs. reality show. His show will make its debut this year.


