Words fail to deceive Haileybury College student and national champion Zachary Cheng.
The 13-year-old Keysborough student has been crowned the Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee 2022 champion in the Years 7-8 group, navigating linguistic trip-hazards such as ‘astrakhan’, ‘psephology, ‘bourgeois’ and ‘vacillate’.
He scored 28 out of 30 tricky words, answered in a rapid-fire 1 minute and 39 seconds.
“I guessed one or two of the words and didn’t expect to get them correct.
“But they were educated guesses because I read a lot. I read almost every day for an hour at least and that helps with my vocabulary.”
The competition attracted a record 61,224 students across Australia.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the winners they had faced tough competition and “not to mention some of the curlier words the English language has to offer”.
“What you’ve done is no small feat, so you can take great pride in your achievement.
“Spelling is one of the great keys that can open up the world, and you’ve shown that you can handle that key with aplomb.”
Zachary is the second consecutive national champion from Haileybury. He follows Year 7 student Theekshitha Karthik’s national title in 2021.
Zachary and the other winners will travel to Canberra to meet the Prime Minister this year.
He also won an iPad and books plus a $1000 prize for his school.
