Sarvadnya Kadam, a 14-year-old Visalia eighth grader, came only a few letters short of claiming the championship in the Scripps National Spelling Bee finals on Thursday night.

Sarvadnya was knocked out in the 20th round of the competition when he misspelled Uaupes, a river in the Colombia-Brazil region.

The winner, Faizon Zaki of Allen, Texas, then successfully spelled two more words, with little to no hesitation, to claim the top prize.

The third time was not the charm for Sarvadnya, who tied for 23rd in the 2023 National Spelling Bee and 60th in the 2024 competition.  2025 was his final year of eligibility. He won the California State Spelling Bee middle school championship in March.

Spelling Bee host Paul Loeffler noted during the broadcast that Sarvadnya was born in India and didn’t start speaking English until his family moved to the United States when he was 5 years old.

Sarvadyna and Faizon were among nine spellers who survived the first 10 rounds earlier in the week and advanced to Thursday’s finals.

Thursday night’s words include some that many of us have never heard of, let alone attempted to spell.

Staying Strong

Round 11, the first round Thursday evening, saw all nine competitors advance. Loeffler said the last time that happened was in 2019.

One student was eliminated in Round 12, which tested the students’ vocabulary, and then two more left the stage after misspelling their words in Round 13. The next three rounds were perfect, with no eliminations, and tension started to build.

Round 17 was brutal, with half of the remaining field of six students eliminated, leaving Sarvadnya, Faizon, and an 11-year-old from Georgia, Sarv Dharavane, to duke it out.

The next round saw the elimination of all three spellers, first Sarvadnya, followed by Sarv and then Faizon, who in his excitement failed to ask about definitions, pronunciations, derivations, and the other queries that spellers make to get a handle on their words before blurting out a misspelling.

That put all three back into contention in Round 19. Sarvadnya correctly spelled muhly. Sarv, who drew laughs when he returned to the microphone and said, “This is surprising,” stumbled and incorrectly spelled eserine. Faizon then correctly spelled cupar, setting the stage for the Round 20 showdown with Sarvadnya.

Faizon claimed the championship, which comes with a trophy and $50,000 cash prize.

Sarvadnya will be a lot richer when he returns to Oak Grove Elementary — his second-place finish earned him a commemorative medal and a $25,000 cash prize.