A teenage basketball prodigy has become the first African American to win the US Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Jamaica’s Jody-Anne Maxwell was the only other previous black champion.
Zaila Avant-garde, a 14-year-old from New Orleans, Louisiana, cruised to victory with the word “murraya”, a type of tropical tree.
Despite practising for up to seven hours a day, she describes spelling as a side hobby – Zaila’s main focus is on becoming a basketball pro.
She already holds three world records for dribbling multiple balls at once and has appeared in an advertisement with the NBA megastar Stephen Curry.
Zaila saw off a field of 11 finalists on Thursday to win the title and bagged a first-place prize of $50,000 at the event in Orlando, Florida.
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