Scripps Spelling Bee 2018: Meet The NYC Contestants

More than 500 spellers will take part in 2018’s Scripps National Spelling Bee, which officially kicked off Tuesday in Maryland. Of the 519 participants taking part in the annual competition, four are from New York City.

The preliminary rounds take place Tuesday and Wednesday and the finals will be held on Thursday, May 31. On Tuesday and Wednesday, you can watch the Bee on ESPN 3. For the finals, tune into ESPN 2 from 10 a.m. - 2p.m. eastern for Part 1 and for Part 2, tune into ESPN at 8:30 p.m eastern.

The preliminaries consist of a multiple choice test and two rounds of spelling onstage, known as round 2 and round 3 respectively, Scripps explains. Spellers are eliminated for spelling incorrectly in either of the onstage rounds. After rounds 2 and 3, no more than 50 spellers head to the finals. (Read the full competition rules here.)

Here are the New York City spellers taking part in the competition:

Neel Iyer, from Manhattan.

Elizabeth Shvarts, From Staten Island

Dante Marinacci, from The Bronx.

Ilana Propp, from Manhattan.

Check back with Patch and we’ll keep you updated with how the NYC spellers perform.

And if you’re curious about whether you have what it takes to compete in the Bee, you can take the preliminaries test to find out.

This story was reported by Feroze Dhanoa.

Lead image: Ananya Vinay of Fresno, CA. won the 2017 Scripps National Spelling Bee (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)