By Delphine Schrank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Ready? Set? Go!
"A city that is divided by a river of the same name was the imperial capital of Vietnam for more than a century. Name this city, which is still an important cultural center."
Tick, tick, tick . . . Bing.
Stumped?
Not Caitlin Snaring. On that clincher, capping a flawless run of answers, the 14-year-old from Washington state sailed to victory yesterday as the first female champion of the National Geographic Bee in 16 years.
Snaring beat out nine other finalists who had emerged from the nearly 5 million elementary and middle school students nationwide competing for the 2007 title.
"I was totally confident that I could do it," Caitlin said after the competition at the National Geographic Society's D.C. headquarters, clutching her giant $25,000 college scholarship prize check. "I want to travel everywhere, so knowing where every place is is a real advantage."
Suneil Iyer, 12, of Kansas, placed second, winning a $15,000 scholarship. Suneil took fourth last year, and this loss stung. "I was more nervous than last year," he said. "Because I'd been there before and I felt the pressure."
Mark Arildsen, 13, of Nashville, who takes apart and rebuilds computers in his spare time, knocked out Francisco Vargas of Puerto Rico, a part-time concert pianist, for third place and a $10,000 scholarship.
Each finalist won $500 for advancing beyond a preliminary round Tuesday that included 55 contestants from the 50 states and other U.S. jurisdictions.
Sitting on the rocks of an outdoor courtyard before the finals, Virginia's Partha Narasimhan (of Aldie) and Ohio's Jon Moller (of Cincinnati) traded war stories. Both had been eliminated Tuesday, along with Maryland's Raynell Cooper (of Rockville).
"We just came thaaat close," Partha said, peering through a razor-thin slit between his thumb and forefinger.
Jon nodded. "I just came sooo close."
Partha lost on which country was the most populous in the Southern Hemisphere and had at one point withdrawn from the United Nations. (Answer: South Africa.)
Defeat one year often inspires a greater fight for victory the next. Of the 10 finalists, six had battled in the 2006 championship.
Among them was Ben Geyer, the three-time D.C. champ, who broke through this year to the final 10.
The competition, he said, was brutal.
Questions crisscrossed the globe, delved back in time and called up the haunting phrases of Silbo, a code language whistled across the island of Gomera.
(And Gomera is administered by which country? Answer: Spain)
Ben, 13, a seventh-grader at the British School of Washington, was flummoxed by the cameo appearance of a tamandua. The furry, insect-eating creature inhabits parts of South America and a nearby island that borders the Gulf of Paria, otherwise known as . . .
"Name that island!" "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek bellowed.
The finalists split between the Falklands or Trinidad.
Fatally, Ben opted for the Falklands, his second mistake. He was the first to go, followed soon by 10-year-old Ben Taylor of West Virginia, the youngest and shortest of the finalists, who told Trebek he had to sit on a huge cushion to see above his name card.
Exeunt also in short order the contestants from Alaska, Colorado, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico and Tennessee.
And then there were two.
Seated on one side of Trebek's podium, Caitlin flicked her eyes around, her face flushed and taut with concentration. On the other side, Suneil sat calm and slumped, almost Zen.
"What is the Arabic term for a valley in the hot desert areas of northern Africa?"
In the 12-second interval, their pens set to scratching.
Wadi, both answered.
Neck and neck after three questions, Caitlin went for Italy and Suneil for Spain when asked which country administered the island of Lampedusa.
Italy it was. Then came the decider, on imperial Vietnam.
Suneil scribbled down Ho Chi Minh City. Caitlin went for Hué, including the accent over the e.
With that, Trebek pronounced the 2007 winner. Caitlin triumphed in the National Geographic Bee with not a single answer wrong in two days of competition and became only the second girl to win since the contest began in 1989.
"I hope people can be inspired by me," she said, adding: "It's really good to know where things are happening. Geography is not a boring subject."
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