2018 Scripps National Spelling Bee underway - finals May 31st

[Sylvia]

Why the Scripps National Spelling Bee has its largest pool of spellers [516!] ever: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...bee-2018-rsvbee-competition-finals/650650002/

RSVBee allows students to make it to the national competition if they didn't qualify through a regional bee and they have either won their school's bee or have been a previous national finalist.
...
The Bee approved 238 spellers to compete through RSVBee out of the 855 applications they received. Spellers received points based on their age and whether they had competed at the National Finals in prior years.
"It's been great from the speller perspective. We see the program as a way to level the playing field," said Bee spokesperson Valerie Miller.
In addition to giving a chance to students who won their school bee in areas where there may not be a qualifying bee, students who compete in highly competitive regional bees also get an opportunity to qualify if they didn't win their region, Miller added.

Website: http://spellingbee.com

Preliminaries
Round 2 - Tuesday, May 29
9:15 a.m. - 5:20 p.m. ET on ESPN3
Summary of Round 2: https://secure.spellingbee.com/public/results/2018/round_results/summary/2

Round 3 - Wednesday, May 30
8 a.m. - 5 p.m. ET on ESPN3

Finals
Thursday, May 31
Part 1 - 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. ET on ESPN2

Part 2 - 8:30 - 10:30 p.m. ET on ESPN

 

[BaileyCatts]

I love watching the Finals of this .... but damn it makes me feel stoopid watching those little kids spelling words I can't even pronounce.

 

[annie720]

Thanks for the reminder, I'd forgotten about this.

 

[quartz]

YAAAAYYYY!!! I love the bee!

 

[A.H.Black]

I didn't get to watch much yesterday. I will have to catch up on ESPN3 replays. I have it on this morning.

Does anyone know why Dr Bailey and the main judge (I've forgotten her name) were not there at the beginning. It was unexpected to hear different voices at the beginning. I'm guessing they had interviews or something but I don't know.

I like watching the early rounds as I know many more of these words. I'm also enjoying the blog - http://spellingbee.com/blog

My state has twice as many spellers as any past year. Two of them are twin boys, three of them are returning spellers. Two are out after yesterday. I'm rooting for the rest of them.

 

[A.H.Black]

Found my answer - https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.1cbaf527ff0d

 

[A.H.Black]

Finalists list on facebook - https://www.facebook.com/scrippsnationalspellingbee/posts/1916605855045673

 

[Sylvia]

The list of finalists are also posted on the website (blog section): http://spellingbee.com/blog/#!/finalists-are-2?nid=1873

My state has twice as many spellers as any past year. Two of them are twin boys, three of them are returning spellers. Two are out after yesterday. I'm rooting for the rest of them.

These two? http://spellingbee.com/blog/#!/set-twins-make-it-through-round?nid=1871

Some of the local articles are compiled here: http://spellingbee.com/local-spelling-bee-news

 

[A.H.Black]

These two? http://spellingbee.com/blog/#!/set-twins-make-it-through-round?nid=1871

Yep. Unfortunately they didn't make it to the finals. My state is not represented. I only recognized 3 or 4 of the finalists and noticed a couple of "favorites" didn't make it.

 

[Winnipeg]

I wish this broadcast in Canada. I love it but we do not get ESPN.

 

[annie720]

I'm enjoying this so much. Haven't even dressed for the day.

 

[A.H.Black]

I wish this broadcast in Canada. I love it but we do not get ESPN.

So far Canada is still in it tool

 

[Garden Kitty]

I get so nervous just watching this, I can't imagine how the kids handle the pressure.

 

[A.H.Black]

That last round went really fast. Only 3 words. Congratulations to Karthik Nemmani. Second year that a first timer has won.

 

[annie720]

Those poor guys looked like they were about to drop towards the end. I was hoping the girl would win, but congrats to Karthik.

 

[BaileyCatts]

I tried to spell some of the words out before they put it up on the screen. I got two right, and one of them was 'cento'. The other one was equally as short and I spelled it the way it sounded, which I figured would be wrong. Did you ever notice that smart kids have a look about them that says "yeah, I know I'm smart". As they were sitting there for the final round, you could almost see the confidence in themselves bursting off the screen. Every time Karthik got a word, you could tell he knew it immediately, but still went thru the questions just to make sure. At least that is what I thought anyway. It must be nice to be smart. I will never know that feeling.