Anirudh Kathirvel, a nine-year-old Indian-origin boy is Australia’s new spelling champion after he won the $50,000 ‘The Great Australian Spelling Bee’ contest.
Kathirvel, born in Melbourne to a Tamilian couple won $50,000 education scholarship along with an impressive $10,000 worth goods for his school on Tuesday.
Anirudh said he could not believe his luck after winning the scholarship and asked his fellow spellers to “pinch” him.
“I need to rub my eyes and see if this is a dream,” he said adding “Nope.Nope.Nope.Real. I can’t describe it. It’s like the best day of my life.”
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Anirudh said his favourite word to spell was ‘euouae’ as he liked the structure of the word as it was the longest word with consecutive vowels.
“Some of the other words I like to spell are feuilleton, cephalalgia, ombrophobous,” he said adding that he loves watching Indian movies.
Anirudh, whose parents Prithiviraj and Sujatha migrated to Australia from Tamil Nadu 16 years ago, said, “I started reading from the age of two and slowly my reading passion evolved into my love for words. My parents encouraged and helped me to build up on my spelling.”
“My first spelling competition was when I was in grade 1. But my first year in the spelling competition was challenging. “Gradually my confidence increased and I was pushing my spelling abilities to its limits. That’s how my spelling journey has begun,” he added.