For the past year, Faizan Zaki, 13, had a schedule that would rival that of professional athletes. He trained five to six hours a day on weekdays and seven to eight hours on weekends.
His reps were words. Lots and lots of words.
That work paid off.
He won the Scripps National Spelling Bee in cinematic fashion late Thursday, spelling the winning word “éclaircissement” without asking any questions, then fell to the ground as confetti poured over him.
“I was just ready to get it over with,” he said, surrounded by his family and friends, “I wasn’t expecting this though.”
After coming in second at the 2024 final, he decided to take a bit of a different approach in preparing this year, to increase his speed and improve his vocabulary. Once he got home from school, he would open the dictionary and look for words he hadn’t seen before. He’d keep track of them in a document, focusing on the definition and spelling of each word.
This year, Faizan also studied specifically for the spell-off, the final tiebreaking round that cost him a win last year. In the spell-off, finalists have 90 seconds to spell as many words from a shared list of 30 as possible. Bruhat Soma defeated Faizan last year, spelling 29 words correctly to Faizan’s 20 words.
The spell-off was required to end the contest last year, but not this year.
This was the first year he felt any external pressure, his mother, Arshia Quadri said, adding that she was relieved the pressure wasn’t overwhelming. (Ms. Quadri said she felt like she was holding her breath until the finals on Thursday night.)
He appeared relaxed on Thursday, often strolling to the microphone with his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt.
Faizan has always loved learning. He started to read at 2, Ms. Quadri said, which she thought was simultaneously remarkable and not entirely significant. Then, at 3, he learned all of the countries of the world and their capitals, “which I have never known in my life,” she said, laughing.
By the time he was 4, people started telling Ms. Quadri and her husband, Zaki Anwar, about schools for gifted children.
Faizan first appeared at the Scripps National Spelling Bee when he was 7. (This year, the youngest competing speller is 8-year-old Zachary Teoh.)
Through the years, Faizan has formed friendships on the road with fellow elite spellers. He credits those friends for keeping him calm ahead of big events.
If he feels nervous, he tells himself: “I think you know this word. You can do it.”
“That gets me pumped,” he said.
Talya Minsberg is a Times reporter covering breaking and developing news.
The post Faizan Zaki, Last Year’s Runner-Up, Won This Year’s Spelling Bee appeared first on New York Times.
