Two Colorado wordsmiths begin their journey at the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Tuesday morning, competing among nearly 250 of the nation’s best young verbivores.
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Nikhil Ganta, a sixth-grader at Fort Collins’ Kinard Core Knowledge Middle School, advanced to the national contest after sparring for 55 rounds to clinch the win at the 86th annual Denver Post Colorado State Spelling Bee in March.
Nikhil, 12, of Timnath, told The Post after his win that when he wasn’t browsing the dictionary, he enjoyed playing cricket, reading mystery novels, skiing and competing in math olympiads.
Derek Li, a seventh-grader from Boulder’s Summit Middle Charter School who won the Boulder Valley School District’s regional bee, will join Nikhil at the competition held outside Washington, D.C.
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While Derek, 13, is a standout speller, he told Scripps that his love of math shines just as bright, as evidenced by his perfect score on the American Mathematics Competition 8 test.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee stretches from Tuesday through Thursday as kids participate in three rounds per day — a mix of spelling, vocabulary tests and written assessments — until they’re knocked out of the bee.
On Tuesday, viewers can watch the preliminaries streamed on Scripps Sports Network from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mountain Time. The same network will stream the quarterfinals from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. Wednesday. The semifinals will air on the ION network at 6 p.m. Mountain Time on Wednesday.
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The finals will air on ION at 6 p.m. Mountain Time on Thursday.
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