Zaila Avant-garde, a 14-year-old from Harvey, Louisiana, has won the Scripps National Spelling Bee, becoming the first African American winner and only the second Black champion in the bee’s 96-year history.
Zaila Avant-garde, 14, wins the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee Finals in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., on July 8, 2021.LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Whether dribbling a basketball or identifying obscure Latin or Greek roots, Zaila Avant-garde doesn’t show much stress.
Zaila has described spelling as a side hobby, although she routinely practiced for seven hours a day. She is a basketball prodigy who hopes to play someday in the WNBA and holds three Guinness world records for dribbling multiple balls simultaneously. Only one word gave her any real trouble, “nepeta,” a genus of Old World mints, and she jumped even higher when she got that one right than she did when she took the trophy.
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