Indian-Americans spelled their way to success on Thursday night bagging the top three spots in the Scripps National Spelling Bee contest.

Thirteen-year-old Arvind Mahankali won first place becoming the sixth consecutive Indian-American to win the contest. Arvind, a resident of Bayside Hills in New York state, correctly spelled the word “knaidel,” a Yiddish word of German origin meaning dumpling, to win $30,000 in cash and prizes and a cup-shaped trophy.

In 2011 and 2012, Arvind placed third in the Spelling Bee after he incorrectly spelled German words.

“The words were extremely hard,” Arvind said. “The German curse has turned into a German blessing.” A little after 10 pm, the contest was down to the final three — all boys, all Indian-Americans.

Arvind, Sriram Hathwar and Pranav Sivakumar slugged it out for the coveted trophy. Fifteen minutes later, Sriram was defeated by “ptyalagogue,” an item that causes the flow of saliva, and the contest was down to two. By 10.20 pm, Pranav misspelled “cyanophycean,” a blue-green algae. Arvind needed to spell two words correctly and the trophy was his.

Arvind, a crowd favourite, correctly spelled “tokonoma.” Then came “knaidel.” This was Arvind’s fourth trip to the Spelling Bee. After winning on Thursday, he promptly announced his retirement from the contest and said he would turn to studying physics.

The past five consecutive Indian-American winners are: Snigdha Nandipati (2012), Sukanya Roy (2011), Anamika Veeramani (2010), Kavya Shivashankar (2009) and Sameer Mishra (2008).