The best young spellers in the English language are set to compete at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.
The first bee was held in 1925, when the Louisville Courier-Journal invited other newspapers to host spelling bees and send their champions to Washington. The bee is now held just outside the nation's capital, at a convention center on the banks of the Potomac River in Oxon Hill, Maryland. It starts Tuesday and concludes Thursday night.
This will be the 97th bee; it was canceled from 1943 to 1945 because of World War II and again in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year's champion will be the 110th, because the bee ended in a two-way tie several times and an eight-way tie in 2019.
The bee is broadcast and streamed on channels and platforms owned by Scripps, a Cincinnati-based media company.
— Tuesday, May 27: Preliminary rounds streamed on Bounce XL, Grit Xtra, Laff More and spellingbee.com from 8 a.m. to 4:40 p.m. EDT.
— Wednesday, May 28: Quarterfinals streamed on Bounce XL, Grit Xtra, Laff More and spellingbee.com from 8 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Semifinals streamed on Bounce XL, Grit Xtra, Laff More and spellingbee.com from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. Semifinals broadcast on ION on tape-delay from 8-10 p.m.
— Thursday, May 29: Finals broadcast on ION from 8-10 p.m.
The bee features 243 spellers, with at least one from each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia; as well as spellers from U.S. territories Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands; and from Canada, the Bahamas, Germany, Ghana, Kuwait and Nigeria.
Faizan Zaki, last year's runner-up, is back after losing to Bruhat Soma in a lightning-round tiebreaker known as a “spell-off.” He's a 13-year-old seventh-grader from Allen, Texas. If he falls short again, he would have one more year of eligibility. He has won several online bees that top spellers compete in as preparation, including the Words of Wisdom Spelling Bee and the South Asian Spelling Bee.