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Girl wins spelling bee in 1st tiebreaker

Barbara GoldbergReuters
Harini Logan won her fourth and final US National Spelling Bee after its first ever "spell-off".
Camera IconHarini Logan won her fourth and final US National Spelling Bee after its first ever "spell-off". Credit: EPA

Texas teen Harini Logan has won the Scripps National Spelling Bee after a first-ever "spell-off" was required for a champion to emerge in the extremely close competition.

Logan takes home $US50,000 ($A69,000), plus further money prizes and reference works from Merriam-Webster and Encyclopedia Britannica.

The 14-year-old from San Antonio beat Vikram Raju, 12, of Denver, after their neck-and-neck competition required a "spell-off" to decide the winner, a first in the history of the US competition.

This year's competition was held at National Harbor, Maryland, just outside Washington, DC.

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In the spell-off, each competitor had 90 seconds to spell as many words correctly as possible. Raju went first and spelled 15 words correctly of the 19 he attempted.

Logan, who waited for her turn in a sound-proof area, emerged to spell 21 words correctly of the 26 she attempted.

Both had the same list of words read to them, ringing a bell to signal they were ready to advance to the next word.

Contestants were aged from seven to 12 and were required to test negative for COVID-19 to take part and were masked onstage except when actively competing.

Logan is an eighth-grade student at The Montessori School of San Antonio. She loves creative writing and plans to publish a book in high school. When she's not spelling, she plays piano, recorder and is learning the ukulele.

This was her fourth and final year as a bee contender.

Last year, when Zaila Avant-garde, 14, from New Orleans correctly spelled "Murraya", a genus of plants, she became the first African American to win the prestigious competition that began in 1925.

After 27 years of being broadcast live on ESPN, this year's live show was moved to ION and Bounce, which are owned by a Scripps subsidiary. The show's host was actor LeVar Burton.

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