The 14-year-old from Harvey, La., breezed to the championship at the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday night, becoming the first African American winner and only the second Black champion in the bee's 96-year history. 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 some day in the WNBA and holds three Guinness world records for dribbling multiple balls simultaneously. Zaila twirled and leaped with excitement after spelling the winning word, "murraya," a genus of tropical Asiatic and Australian trees. The first champion from Louisiana, #Speller133 Zaila Avant-garde wins the Scripps Cup!

Source: CBC News July 09, 2021 02:32 UTC