MUMBAI: A UK non resident Indian (NRI) 13 year old Gayathri Kumar has been crowned the first Hard Spell Champion. BBC had organised the competition in the UK.

Kumar managed to correctly spell words as diverse and difficult as apocalypse, mezzanine, troglodyte, claustrophobia, geisha and resuscitate to become Britain's best young speller. The final round saw five finalists who were whittled down from over 100,000 spellers who took part in school competitions in the UK back in September.

She said, " When I arrived at Television Centre I was so tense, I was just numb, and I didn't even think I'd be going through to the finals."

Hard Spell is developed with BBC Format Entertainment. The executive producer is Karen Smith.

Gayathri won a holiday, £5,000 worth of media equipment for her school and the Hard Spell trophy. Kumar had the following advice to offer for spellers and future Hard Spell contestants. "Write down the words you get wrong and carry the list around with you, looking at it when you have spare time."