Why not allow for competitive spaces that recognize sometimes more than one person is the best, rather than reserving that for a singular person? If there is one venue that is best suited for multiple winners, it is the spelling bee. Both onstage and offstage, spelling kids high-five one another, share study techniques and root for others once they have fallen. I have met with scores of families, attended multiple spelling competitions and visited the homes of competitive spellers. Scripps has already tried to weed out co-champions, and seems to now be pulling words from the back pages of Merriam-Webster’s unabridged dictionary.

Source: New York Times June 01, 2019 15:00 UTC