The Town of Odyssey

It's that time of year again. We're down to the final 50 semi-finalists after a rather lackluster selection of words in the preliminaries. The big names this year in what's turning out to be the end of a fantastic era are Vanya, the only 5 time speller in the bee and all around celebrity for the past decade, and Gokul who finished 3rd in this past year's historic tie. Semi's are tomorrow at 10A and the Finals are at 8PM.

There are also two younger brothers of past champions in the semi's this year: Jairam Hathwar, younger brother of 2014 co-champion Sriram, and Srinath Mahankali, younger brother of 2013 champion Arvind. There could be a first-ever Spelling Bee dynasty family this year.

Personally, I'm pulling for Vanya for a variety of reasons, but regardless, it's going to be an exciting bee

It's apparently finishing today? Shame on whoever usually posts about it for not doing it this year; that's the only way I know about it, I would have missed it. Fortunately I'm in a waiting room and they have it on so I realized.

Merged the two topics

Oh well no wonder; it's in the wrong forum.

Co-champs again! I was thrilled when Vanya went all the way

It's the end of an era. Those two are the last of the group that has been incredibly strong for the past 5 years. And debatably the strongest two ever with neither getting a word wrong unlike last year.

So it hadn’t happened for over 50 years, and now it’s happened back to back? What’s with that?