It's the elimination stages of this gruelling competition, where only those who could handle stress and as the competitors say a bit of luck will help them hold through. Nervousness, tension, anticipation, relief, joy are a few of the emotions experienced by the 12 contestants from Jaffna, Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Trincomalee and Gampaha fighting to stay in the competition, and grab the title of the Spellmaster.
Spellmaster the all island school spelling competition organized by CIMA with Sirasa TV which started off from 7,000 competitors and is now reaching the finals rounds. Last Sunday the top twelve spellers emerged and a battle was on as only 10 of them would have the opportunity to move in to the next round.
The competitors were put through 3 rounds of words, in the first round the contestants had to provide a word of their choice to an opponent; in the following round the spellers were given the opportunity to select a word from a pool of 50 words, and in the final round they were given the opportunity to choose a word from a selection of 5 categories, namely, Science, Culture, Nature, Business and General.
With the competition having gotten to a crucial point, competitors have now taken the dictionary to be part of their day to day chores. This was evident when it came to the point where each of them had to give a word of their choice to their opponent, as they always gave tongue twisting words to each other. Rochelle Silva of Holy Cross College Gampaha on the first round of words said she didn't enjoying giving a word as she would feel bad if the other person misspelled it. Senuri Sahabandu of Sacred Heart Convent Galle had a different view and said "there should be no hard feelings against the competitors, it's just a competition". Solomon Hariharan of St.John's College Jaffna and Piumi Wijesundara of Mahamaya Girls' College Kandy had luck on their side for the 1st round. Solomon received the word "Cwtch", which is of Welsh origin, from Rochelle Silva, he figured out the spellings to the word with the help of Vasika Uduranwane of St.Thomas' College Mount Lavinia who had received the word "Cwm", also of Welsh origin, from M.N.Farook of Trinity College Kandy just before it was his turn. Unfortunately Vasika misspelt the word, but his mistake helped Solomon spell the word he got. Piumi was very excited by the word she received from Sheroze Sheriffdeen of Royal College Colombo 7, "Sioux", as she had referred to it just a few days before the competition.
At the end of the three rounds of words, 5 contestants had got all three words given out to them correct and 4 contestants got two words given to them right, so 9 contestants had secured their place to the Top 10, this meant the 3 remaining contestants, namely, Taryana Odayar of Stafford International School Colombo, J.Aaraby of St.Mary's College Trincomalee and Archana Perera of St.Peter's College Colombo 4, who had just spelled one word correct had to compete for one spot to the next round.
Aaraby misspelled the word given to her in the next round and had to bow out of the competition. The battle was now between Taryana and Archana, they were neck-to-neck for the next five rounds of words, hurdling words like "preponderance", "guacamole" and "munificence". The nervous tension could be seen in both their faces, even the audience was in pins. A very edgy Taryana received the word "Firkin", and it could be seen that she was trying to figure out whether it was spelled "fer-" or "fur-", of which both were incorrect, she finally spelled the word "Ferkin". The ball was in Archana's court now, he received the word "Adzuki" and after much deliberation he spelled the word spot on, making him the final contestant to the Top 10.
On their defeat, a teary eyed Aaraby said she learnt not to be over confident and added that 'r' in the word she got, "lineaments" only because she was so tense. Taryana said she was sad to be leaving so soon but she's satisfied to have gotten so far, she was trying to focus on her words but that didn't happen and she "learnt not to under or over estimate words even if it sounds easy spelling, it might be tricky."
The battle of the 10 spellers for the top 4 slots in the finals could be seen on Sirasa TV every Sunday from 6 pm - 7 pm.
The following are the names of the 10 remaining spellers' from the Top 20:
M.Rochelle U.Silva Holy Cross College Gampaha
Nimeshi Dissanayake Sanghamitta Balika Vidyalaya Galle
Senuri Chandula Sahabandu Sacred Heart Convent Galle
Vasika.Y.Udurawane St. Thomas College Mount Lavinia
S.Kumeri Bandara Girls High School Kandy
Solomon Rajaram Hariharan St. John's College Jaffna
Sheroze Sheriffdeen Royal College Colombo 7
J. Archana Perera St. Peter's College Colombo 4
Piumi .S. Wijesundara Mahamaya Girls' College Kandy
M.N. Farook Trinity College Kandy
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