The Geography Bee is pretty impressive too. These kids have to know about places that locals probably have never heard of.
A year or two ago, there was a boy who made it into the finals that I hoped would win it. It was really obvious from his onstage behavior and interviews that he was SEVERELY autistic, and unlike the autistic girl who won it about 20 years ago, he seemed like a really nice kid. IIRC, she was the first homeschooled winner, but this wasn’t a choice in their case; she had even been expelled from schools for kids like her, and had to be taken offstage when she wasn’t spelling because she could not behave appropriately onstage. 