Sylvie Lamontagne, speller 29, sighed nervously as she spelled "cerastes" on her hand while the clock counted down.
"That's not right," she said, just before the bell rang.
Sylvie only got one shot at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Her sponsor, The Denver Post, doesn’t let spellers come back a second time.
So Sylvie felt the pressure. She’s watched the bee on TV in years past and knew a lot of words, but not all of them.
“I’m really excited,” the Lakewood, Colorado seventh grader said. “I’m also really scared.”
Sylvie said the new ranking system was “nerve-wracking.” She was on the bubble, and only made the finals because spellers above her misspelled on stage and were eliminated.
Knowing she only had one shot at the bee kept her motivated, she said. And if she doesn’t know a word, she’ll take a deep breath, and ask a whole lot of questions, hoping the definition, sentence or root word will offer her some clues.
“There are always more words you can know,” she said. “There’s always more you can do.”