An Austrian-born 10-year-old has been in Miami for 3 years. She just won spelling bee.

Ten-year-old Stella Armstrong has lived in the United States for only three years, but Tuesday she was crowned the 80th Annual Miami Herald Spelling Bee Champ.

“Third grade was her first year in the United States, before that we lived in Europe,” said her mother, Alina Armstrong.

“She’s only lived in an English-practicing country for three years,” added her father, Greg Armstrong, who works for a global private equity firm.

The fifth-grader at the private Fisher Island Day School was born in Austria and moved to Warsaw, Poland, when she was a toddler. She went to a Canadian school in Warsaw, where she learned French.

She’s fluent in English, and conversational in French, Spanish, Russian, Polish and is learning Chinese. She grew up learning Russian and English, the languages of her mother and father, respectively

Though she’s participated in school spelling bees since she was little — and always won — Stella says she still gets “a lot of that nervous, excitement feel.”

Tuesday’s competition at the Miami-Dade and Monroe County Regional Spelling Bee was a bit challenging.

“I was getting nervous and I thought I wasn’t going to make it,” Stella said. “When the announcer called ‘epsilon,’ I was like, “Oh wait, I know that word.’”

Epsilon, the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, turned out to be her winning word. She bested more than 150 students across Miami-Dade and Monroe counties.

Stella will represent Miami-Dade at the 2020 Scripps National Spelling Bee from May 24-May 29, in Maryland near Washington. The Broward competition will be Tuesday, March 17, in Pembroke Pines at the Charles F. Dodge City Center.

The students arrived early Tuesday at the Miami Airport Convention Center for the competition. To qualify, all spellers took a written exam with 40 questions — 30 spelling and 10 vocabulary. Every student then spelled one word on stage before the elimination rounds.

About 171 students were registered but several students canceled, said Silvia Larrieu., director of events, partnerships and development for the Miami Herald. “I can’t say for sure that any of them were for coronavirus concerns.”

But a couple of the schools listed medical concerns as their reason for canceling and a few students were no-shows, Larrieu said. Larrieu and her team posted coronavirus tips in the bathroom, emailed parents and handed out packets to parents warning them to wash their hands.

It was an early morning for Jose Bueno, 24, so he closed his eyes as the students took the written test. The University of Tampa student drove home late Monday night to watch his 14-year-old sister, Maria, an eighth-grader at Eugenia B. Thomas K-8 Center in Doral, compete.

“Last night, she was nervous,” he said. “She was like, ‘What did I get myself into?””

Out of the three children in the family, “she’s the smart one,” he said. This morning, she was more confident, he said, until she saw the other competitors preparing with their massive vocabulary sheets. (She didn’t make the final cut.)

Most of the participants prepared with thick books of words, but Stella has picked up her vocabulary through reading, she said. Stella mostly reads books in English; her favorite author is Rick Riordan (who chronicles the fictional Percy Jackson) and she likes reading traditional Greek mythology.

“She’s not very sporty. She’s a couch potato and she likes to read,” her mother said. “Her happiest time is in a book.”

While most of the students used the hour-long lunch break to drill words with their parents or play on their phones, Stella ordered another book on her parents’ Amazon account.

After the break, the action revved up. Most of the cheering came from a group of middle school students nicknamed the “Spellebrities.” They were there to support two of their fellow classmates from Treasure Village Montessori Charter School in the Keys with their principal, Kelly Mangel.

“We’re a small school, so there’s a lot of camaraderie,” Mangel said.

One of the students, fifth-grader Gabriella Gutierrez, made it to the final three spellers, her second year competing for the title.

But she was stumped by the word “chemise,’’ a term for women’s lingerie. She came in third.

“I told her that I’m so proud of her, and that she still has time to accomplish her goals,” said Mangel, hugging her.

Camila Perez of Pinecrest Cove Academy placed second. The Bee is open to all fifth- to eighth-graders.

Competition at the national level is fierce with 500 of the top spellers from the 50 states, the District of Columbia and across the globe.

“Preparation for the nationals should begin on the way home from the Bee,” said the emcee, Mark Schermeister.

But celebration will come first.

“We’re probably going to end up at Smith & Wollensky,” Stella’s father said, noting they had to pick up Stella’s 5-year-old brother first. “We’ll let her get whatever she wants.”

Stella made her decision with zero hesitation, just as she did during the bee.

“A Shirley Temple,” she declared.