Ananya Vinay of Fresno, California won the Scripps National Spelling Bee, taking home a $40,000 cash prize after 12 hours of picking her way along a precarious lifeline of consonants and vowels.
She correctly spelled the word marocain, a dress fabric made of warp of silk or rayon and a filling of other yarns, to win the 25-word championship round of the spelling bee held at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in suburban Washington.
Runner-up Rohan Rajeev missed the word "marram", a Scandinavian-derived word for beach grass. Ananya's victory was the first time since 2013 that the bee has declared a single champion. It ended in a tie for three consecutive years.
The bee had added a written tiebreaker test this year, but it didn't come into play.