Sumedh Garimella came oh so close in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, but Georgia’s last standing champion didn’t make it to the final round after semi-final competition Thursday morning.
The 14-year-old from Duluth correctly spelled “gelid,” as in icy cold, in Round 5, which started at 10 a.m. Soon after, in Round 6, he nailed “vaporetto,” a small steamboat shuttle on the canals of Venice.
Yet his accumulated points during all the stages of competition, including rounds of computer testing, weren’t enough to get him into tonight’s 8 p.m. final. He clapped politely with the other 46 semifinalists when the last of the dozen finalists was named. All of them are masters of spelling, having emerged from some 11 million kids who competed in classrooms across the country.
Follow the competition at spellingbee.com.
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