Ten-year-old Shobhitha Balasubramaniam is officially Bermuda’s best speller after triumphing in the annual SpellDown contest.

The youngster from Port Royal Primary beat out competition from runner up Jahniya Richardson, 10, from Paget Primary on Saturday as they battled with tricky words including assassin, reimbursement and vivacious.

Shobhitha won a Walt Disney Cruise for four, a laptop computer and a $100 gift certificate, while Jahniya took home a laptop and gift certificate for his efforts.

Landing third place at the final, held at Mount Saint Agnes Academy, was Jessica Sinclair from that school. She won a gift certificate and an iPod Nano.

There were nine finalists in total, picked during ZoneDown semi-finals in the east, west and centre of the Island. Bermuda College and the Ministry of Education sponsored the competition which aims to build children’s vocabularies in a fun and interesting way.

Education Minister Randolph Horton watched the final and two of the heats, and said afterwards: “I want to congratulate Shobhitha. It’s evident that she was well prepared and a very good student. Through the preliminaries and finals she displayed confidence in her ability.

“I also want to congratulate Jahniya who placed second. It’s good to see a young man among the finalists, who did a great job.

“I was very proud and pleased with all of the finalists. In my eyes, they were all winners.”