Dan Steinberg has all the coverage you need of the pandemonium, that's p-a-n-d-e-m-o-n-i-u-m that will break loose today as the 2010 Spelling Bee continues to whittle its contestants down one treacherous "i before e" verb at a time. The DMV region has four horses to back, and Steinberg lets you know where his rooting interests lie:
↵↵↵There are four quasi-locals, including home schooler Lanson Tang from Potomac, former D.C. resident Sonia Schlesinger (now of Tokyo), home schooler Sarah Allen from Waynesboro and home schooler Tim Ruiter of Centreville. The DMV hasn't produced a national champion since Richmond's Amanda Goad in 1992; the immediate D.C. area hasn't produced a champ since Leesburg's Daniel Greenblatt in 1984. Lanson "loves sports," according to his bio, and you should probably root for him.
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So its been 18 years since we brought home the national championship? Even our local spellers are chokers? Well, its high time that Ted Leonsis buys out the schools and turns this thing around.