Shrey Parikh, a 14-year-old from California, won the 98th Scripps National Spelling Bee after a dramatic finale against Ishaan Gupta from New Jersey. The competition involved 18 rounds and a 90-second spell-off, where Parikh spelled 32 words correctly to Gupta's 25. The event, which has been held since 1925, aims to modernize its format for a new generation, introducing a vocabulary round and a gameshow-like feel.