In his first National Spelling Bee appearance in 1992, Memphis, Tenn. native Srinivas placed in third place. The then-11-year-old lost to eventual winner Amanda Goad and the second place finisher Todd Erik Wallace.
The word that Srinivas lost on was “rescissory,” but he returned to the Spelling Bee in 1994 for another chance at redemption. That year was the first time that the event was televised, and Srinivas said on Spelling the Dream that it was a big deal for the event to be on ESPN.
“[It was] definitely a much bigger buzz for us. It was really cool, I mean, I was a huge basketball fan by that time and I was wearing a Bulls cap at one of the picnics…” he said in the documentary.
He also explained that, at the time, there was less of an Indian American presence than there is today.
“In the Scripps Spelling Bee, in the early ’90s, when I was there, I recall seeing a few Indian-American students, certainly as South Asian-American students,” he said. “It wasn’t something that felt, like, normal that there was a ton.”
Unfortunately for Srinivas, he placed in the exact same position his second time around. He lost the 67th National Spelling Bee to Ned G. Andrews and Brian K. Lee, but he went on to accomplish some very impressive accolades.
Source : https://www.distractify.com/p/srinivas-ayyagari-spelling-the-dream