Indian American Kids Ace World Geography Championship

A team of three bright young Indian American students beat out teams from 17 other regions to win top honors at the 11th National Geographic World Championship July 31 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The U.S. team — team captain Gopi Ramanathan, 15, from Sartell, Minnesota; Asha Jain, 13, from Minocqua, Wisconsin; and Neelam Kaur Sandhu, 14, from Bedford, New Hampshire — soared ahead of second place Canada, which was up against third-place India in a tense tiebreaker round, said a spokesperson.

This biennial competition, in which teams of students answered questions on physical, cultural and economic geography, was hosted by Alex Trebek (“Jeopardy!”) and sponsored by Google, and presented by the National Geographic Society in partnership with the Russian Geographical Society. This marks the sixth victory for the U.S.; gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded to the first-, second- and third-placed teams.

The U.S. trio won by correctly identifying a country whose flag has six small stars representing the mainland and its five offshore islands; the answer was Equatorial Guinea.

“I’m still trying to process it and what that means,” Ramanathan told his local newspaper the St. Cloud Times. “It (the world competition) is different from any other geo bee I’ve been in. It was very fun.” India-West’s phone call to organizers for a comment from the winners was not returned by press time.

Ramanathan, who has won his state geography bee twice already, finished seventh in the 2012 National Bee in Washington, D.C. “I was kind of surprised that they asked me to do it,” he told the St. Cloud Times. “I thought it was odd because it had been a year since I last competed in a geo bee, but I was happy to be selected.”

Jain — who has spent her summer studying for up to 10 hours per day for the competition — is over the moon, since this win
means she has bested her 15-year-old brother, Vansh, a geography whiz who competed in the U.S.’s National Geography Bee finals three times, in the sixth, seventh and eighth grade, finally taking second place overall in 2012.

Their mother, Manisha Jain, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “This is like a win for the whole family … Sanjeev (Asha’s father) told her if she wins the world championship she gets an iPhone.”

According to a spokesperson, students around the world earned the chance to be part of the World Championship competition by winning or being a top finisher in the national competitions of their home regions. The 15 other teams competing were from Australia, Bulgaria, China, Chinese Taipei, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Mexico, Mongolia, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and the United Kingdom. Indonesia and Mongolia participated for the first time this year.

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