In the written portion of the competition, pronouncer Solomon Henry Clark gave an incorrect example for the word "capitol", causing many spellers to write it as "capital". After the second-place Pittsburgh team and others raised concerns, the spelling bee organizers re-scored the written tests. After re-scoring, the teams kept their overall rankings, but Marie Bolden no longer had a perfect score, and two other girls on the Cleveland team did. Marie Bolden was still allowed to keep her gold medal and title as champion.
