1 min readUpdated: May 29, 2026 10:36 AM IST
A fourteen-year-old Indian-American student, Shrey Parikh, from California won the Scripps National Spelling Bee 2026 on Friday after correctly spelling 32 words in 90 seconds. Parikh defeated New Jersey’s Ishan Gupta in the final round of the competition.
A finalist in the 2024 edition as well, Parikh walked away with several prizes, including USD 50,000, the Scripps Cup, a commemorative medal, USD 2,500 from Merriam-Webster, USD 1,000 in Delta flight credits and USD 400 worth of reference material from Encyclopaedia Britannica.
The three-day event began on Monday at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington and featured 247 participants representing all 50 US states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Department of Defense schools in Europe and five other countries: Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates.
Nine contestants made it to the finals held on Thursday evening.
During the decisive spell-off round, Shrey and Ishaan were each given 90 seconds to spell as many words as possible from the same list.
According to the judges, Shrey correctly spelt 32 words, while Ishaan managed 25. Twelve-year-old Sarv Dharavane from Georgia secured the third position.
