Asian girl wins BBC spelling gameshow

Thirteen year old Gayathri Kumar from Ormskirk, near Liverpool, has been named the first Hard Spell Champion. Gayathri notched up an incredible list of correctly spelt words as diverse and difficult as apocalypse, mezzanine, troglodyte, claustrophobia, geisha and resuscitate to become Britain’s best young speller on Sunday night.

Gayathri was delighted: “I’m extremely happy that I won the first ever Hard Spell competition in the UK. “When I arrived at Television Centre I was so tense, I was just numb, and I didn’t even think I’d be going through to the finals.”

Eamonn Holmes presented Gayathri with the Hard Spell trophy. “I’ve been truly amazed at the standard of spelling from these young kids and the sheer enthusiasm for a subject which will be invaluable to them in life. “Congratulations to Gayathri and well done to all the kids who took part.”

The five finalists were whittled down from over 100,000 spellers who took part in school competitions back in September. Hard Spell Champion Gayathri went head-to-head with Nisha from Wolverhampton who made it through to second place when she misspelt dachshund.