Wednesday marked the end of the road for Ariya Narayanasamy, winner of this year's Japan Times Bee, as he failed to advance to the Scripps National Spelling Bee Finals.
Despite correctly spelling each word he was given on stage, Narayanasamy's score on a written exam Monday was not strong enough to place him in the top 50 remaining spellers.
The 12-year-old spelled "bandicoot" Tuesday without trouble and deftly navigated his way around the unfamiliar word "pyrexia" Wednesday morning. He had never seen it before but worked methodically to deconstruct the pronunciation of the word and put it back together letter by letter.