National Spelling Bee culminates in 8-way tie

The 92nd Scripps National Spelling Bee had an epic outcome on Thursday as the competition ended up having eight co-champions.

The eight winners are Rishik Gandhasri, Erin Howard, Saketh Sundar, Shruthika Padhy, Sohum Sukhatankar, Abhijay Kodali, Christopher Serrao and Rohan Raja, CNN reported.

The decision to stop the competition at round 20 was made after round 17, when all the eight participants were involved in a run of 47 correct words to end the competition.

At that point, it was decided that while there were plenty of words left in the dictionary, there were only enough challenging words for three final rounds.

"We have plenty of words left on our list but will soon run out of words that would challenge you," CNN quoted Bee's official pronouncer, Dr. Jacques Bailly, as saying.

The final round of the competition went on for more than an hour.

Words like Omphalopsychite, Geeldikkop, and auftaktigkeit were given to the contestants to spell. Spellcheck may not recognise these words, but the participants were able to.

Each of the eight champions would receive prize money of USD 50,000.