The team Mary Berry (Tudor Musat, Iona Covei) was victorious at the UDP Open 2019. Out of Opening Government, they defeated the Opening Opposition Sciences Proles (Daniel Chouchena, Hao Juan Tan), the Closing Government 5,000 Troops to Paris (Olivia Sundberg Diez, Guillermo Serrano) and UDS please don't start a revolution (Joris Graff, Marthe Wijfjes). The motion read: "TH as a Yellow Vest, supports attempts by Les Emergents to run for elections in European and French elections (incl. infoslide)".  The final was judged by all breaking judges with Lucy Murphy as chair as well as Emily Frizell, George Hames, Huyen Nguyen, Klaudia Maciejewska, Milla Huuskonen ...

[caption id="attachment_35037" align="alignright" width="400"] Ryan Fisk and Michael Crossely - © University of York Debating Society[/caption] The York IV 2019 was won by the team Breaking On A Points Based System (Michael Crossely, Ryan Fisk) from the University of Hull. They won the final out of Closing Government against the Opening Government He taught me LO, he taught me PM, he taught me Pain, thank u, Fred (Craig McDonald, Georgie Friend; Cardiff/Warwick), the Opening Opposition Rafael Shimabukuro memes for woke male feminist teens (Joshua Varughese, Lucie Slamova; Warwick) and the Closing Opposition Manchester QS (Rae Qiu, Yusuf Steel). The motion read ...

After nine preliminary rounds, the first half of Cape Town World University Debating Championship 2019 has ended with the break to the elimination rounds. The outrounds will begin tomorrow, January 2nd, with the Open Partial Double Octofinal. If teams were on equal team- and speakerpoints, the number of wins/second places decided their ranking order. If a team was eligible for more than one break, it could choose their preferred option. The following teams and judges moved on to the elimination rounds of the Cape Town WUDC: Open Break 1. Oxford C (Rachel O'Nunain, Brian Yan) - 22p. / 1471 spk. 2. Cambridge A (Trenton Sewell, Ian ...

What you need to know about the days 2 and 3 of the Cape Town WUDC 2019: In addition to another three rounds of fierce competition, Day 2 of WUDC culminated in Gender Minorities Inclusion Night and the Women's Forum. Gender Inclusion Night was open to all and ran past 21.00 O'clock, featuring two professional speakers and four debate community member panelists (including a member of the Cape Town WUDC Adjudication team, Enting Lee) and moderated by the current two Women's Officers, who alternated between asking guided questions and taking questions from the audience. Country reports were not delivered and will be ...

What you need to know about day 1 of the Cape Town World University Debating Championship 2019: Team codes passed after a revisit by the WUDC Council, and are displayed alongside the last names of team competitors. In addition, for the first time, WUDC tabulation is happening in tabbycat software. On day 1, the tournament ran only a few minutes behind schedule and ended on time. The motions were: Round 1: TH, as South Africa, would forcibly break up exclusive Afrikaner* enclaves *Afrikaners are a white South African ethnic gorup descended from predominantly Dutch settlers Round 2: THBT the protections of international law conventions and treaties ...

[caption id="attachment_34894" align="alignright" width="400"] Tommy Peto and Gigi Gil - © UoB Debating[/caption] The team Oxford GP (Gigi Gil, Tommy Peto) was victorious at the Birmingham IV 2018. They won the final motion "TH prefers a world where co-parenting is primarily non-romantic (conducted by consenting partners who have no romantic or sexual relationship, eg. friends)" out of Opening Government against Only here so Luke gets moved up a squad (Luke Dunn, Jamie Johnson) in Opening Opposition, LSE B (Abhinav Reddy Bathula, Keshav Arvind) in Closing Government and 240 nuts cracked, 752 to go (Becky Elkington, Gwylim Taylor) in Closing Opposition. The ...

[caption id="attachment_34887" align="alignright" width="300"] Melda Eren and Jure Hederih - © Gigi Gil[/caption] The 20th edition of the SSE Riga IV was won by the mixed-team Balkans: Dangerously Emotional (Melda Eren, Jure Hederih; Munich/Oxford). They won the final motion "THW prefer a world where wealth is seen as shameful" out of Closing Government against the Opening Government Riga Mortis (Roel Schoenmakers, Nastia Grishkova; Tilburg/KCL), the Opening Opposition The Dark Knife (Meradj Oidermaa, Johan Allen; Stockholm) and the Closing Opposition Tartu A (Erik Haamer, Carl-Martin Keerberg). The final was judged by Tin Puljić, Tom Manor, Rasmuss Filips Geks, Edgars Klētnieks and Assel ...

[caption id="attachment_34789" align="alignright" width="400"] The training team from left to right: Jonas, Milos, Cliodhna, Benji, Sharmila, Joona, Milla, Brian, Johan, Matti - © Evertime Visuals[/caption] The Nordic Debate Academy was the first in a series of trainings co-ordinated by the Athens EUDC and Thailand WUDC. This training was hosted by the Danish Debate Association in conjunction with FINDA - Finnish Debating Association, Stockholm Debate Society, and Lund Debate Society / Lunds Debattsällskap at the Copenhagen Business School. The NDA featured two and a half days of workshops and a four round tournament with a break to finals. 10 countries were represented at the ...

In the Summer 2018 issue of International Debate, Miriam Kohn (LearningLeaders, Rochester '17) and Chris Perkins (Rochester '17) published an article titled "Fair Play: Proposals for Reform to the Break System in British Parliamentary Debate." In said article, they discussed the possibility to replace team breaks on speaks with a point-based break and additional bye-based elimination round. AchteMinute (AM): First off, so lucky to be chatting with you, Miriam & Chris. Can you tell us briefly about your background in debate? Miriam Kohn (M): Thanks for taking the time to chat with us! My high school didn’t have a debate team, so ...

[caption id="attachment_34639" align="alignright" width="400"] The top two speakers and champions of this year's HWS IV: Aditya Dhar and Tejal Patwardhan - © Eric Barnes[/caption] The HWS IV 2018 was won by Harvard DP (Tejal Patwardhan, Aditya Dhar) from Opening Government. They debated the final on the motion "This House believes that the state should curb assortative mating" against Yale CP (Ko Lyn Cheang, Lorenzo Pinasco) in Opening Opposition, Brandeis/Northeastern SS (Ravi Simon, Dennis Su) in Closing Government, and Rochester FO (Ben Frazer, Warish Orko) in Closing Opposition. The final was chaired by Buzz Klinger with Alexander Beaumont, Allie McGowan, Dan Yoon, Daniel Berman, Shani Bennett, and Steph White.  The Novice Final of the tournament was ...

[caption id="attachment_34633" align="alignright" width="338"] © Saharalipour[/caption] The Hart House Inter-Varsity 2018 was won by Laurier/Unaffiliated SX (Ivy Xu and Brendt Schmidt) from Opening Opposition. They debated the final on the motion "This House opposes the propagation of Canadian exceptionalism" against Harvard CH (John Hunt, Sophia Caldera) in Opening Government, Yale AC (William Arnesen, Ko Lyn Cheang) in Closing Government, and Cornell KW (Jin Mo Koo, Emma Rose Wirshing) in Closing Opposition. The final was chaired by Mo Niaz with Alexandra Sundarsingh, James Hardy, Julia Milden, and Meghan Auckland. The Novice Final of the tournament was won by  Western DX (Vidit Desal, Emily Xie) in Closing Government, on the motion "With the goal of improving representation in media, this House would ...

The Yale IV 2018 was won by Harvard CH (John Hunt and Sophia Caldera) from Opening Government. They debated the final on the motion "This House would legalize and train sex workers specifically to work with disabled people" against Brown GG (Jack Gramlich, Sandy Greenberg) in Closing Opposition, Harvard BrMe (Ed Bracey, Dasha Metropolitansky) in Closing Government, and Princeton AO (Samuel Arnesen, Sinan Ozbay) in Opening Opposition. The final was chaired by Michael Mao with Bobbi Leet, Charlie Barton, Daniel Berman, Lorenzo Pinasco. The Novice Final of the tournament was won by  Princeton JW (Daniel Ju, Greg Weaving) in Opening Government, on the motion "This House believes that the horrors of history are incompatible with a belief in ...

[caption id="attachment_34546" align="alignright" width="230"] Leiden TBA, the Winners of the Tournament - ©David Metz[/caption] The Roosevelt Open 2018 in Middleburg was won by Leiden TBA (David Metz and Joas Bakker) from Closing Opposition. They debated the final on the motion "Given the choice, THBT US Supreme  Court Justices should be elected by a vote amongst federal judges rather than a popular vote" against DSDC Orange (Lukas Joosten and Elian Lavrijsen) in Opening Government, Pure Esoteric Wisdom (Tanya Shrivastava and Fabian Beitsma; Delft) in Opening Opposition and Leiden, Mike is your Problem now (Roel Schoenmackers and Lotte Classen; Cicero) in Closing Government. The final was chaired by Lisa Schallenberg with Daan Spackler, Jeroen Wijnen, Milos Marjanovic and Simone Landman. The Novice Final ...

Today's feature presents: The first speaker to be top of the tab at an EUDC in both categories as an ESL participant since 2001, Lucía Arce Cubas! In the interview Lucía told us about her origins, debating career and being ESL in the UK. ...

Olzhas Abdukhamitov and Aigerim Shadeyeva are the conveners of the Astana EUDC, Olzhas volunteered at Novi Sad and Aigerim competed, making it to the ESL Quaters. Raffy Marshall and Monica Forman are the CAs of Astana EUDC. We sat down with them to talk about bringing the EUDC to Central Asia. ...

Following days of massive discussion on social media, the EUDC Council held an extraordinary meeting regarding events at the EUDC in Novi Sad, where a team from Qatar University refused to debate Israeli teams. In order to clarify what happened, we summed up the recent developments for you. ...

The Novi Sad EUDC, lasting 30.07.-05.08.18, came to an impressive conclusion: Teams from Tel Aviv won both the ESL (English as a Second Language) and the Open final! The ESL dominance continued with - originally Mexican - debater Lucía Arce, starting for Sheffield, being both top speaker in ESL and in total. Read more about the constellations, teams, speakers, judges and motions below. ...

As the 2018 European Universities Debate Championship progresses, the break is now online. ...

Kanat Nogoibayev and Chyngyz Ibraimov represent Kyrgyzstan for the first time in the history of EUDC. We spoke to them about their hopes for future EUDCs in Central Asia and what debating in a post-Soviet states is like. ...

Dhalia Alayassa, Tamara Abdel Lafit and Iman Sarj are students at the Alquds University and the An-Najah University. They are the first university students from Palestine to compete at the EUDC. Additionally, Weenta Mehari coaches Alquds University and Mariel Golden is the coach of An-Najah University. We interviewed them about Palestine joining the EUDC. ...

On Monday afternoon, the EUDC 2018 precouncil took place at Novi Sad University. Apart from the usual updates from the OrgComm, the equity and language teams and the chief-adjudicators, the following notable aspects were discussed. Partial Octo Finals Due to the comparatively low number of teams (188) that registered on Monday, the CA-team strongly recommended to cut partial octo finals to keep the break competitively at 10% as suggested by the constitution. Precouncil rejected this recommendation unanimously, arguing that the no-show teams usually are not top teams, but teams that were not to break anyway. Language Committee Suggestion on Language Bias Feedback The language ...

In Warsaw, 2016, Scotland was, after a tough race against Hull and Riga, selected as the host of EUDC 2018. Jan-Gunther Gosselke, president of the EUDC Council’s Executive Committee, describes how a chain of events led to this year’s Euros taking place in Novi Sad, Serbia instead. Last summer in Tallinn, the Scottish bid was to be ratified. This is when Scottish OrgComm first brought an issue regarding accommodation to council’s attention: The hotel no longer was available at the initial week planned for EUDC because one of their long term customers asked for accommodation at the same time and they ...

Portrait of a Tudor as a young Al (Tudor Musat and Alasdair Donovan, Cambridge) have won the 2018 edition of the KCL Open. Organized by conveners Emily Frizell and Joel Richardson, the tournament took place from June 30th to July 2nd at the King's College in London and was chief-adjudicated by Srishti Krishnamoorthy-Cavell, Tejaswini Krishnaprasad and Cian Luddy. In a grand final judged by Tim Squirrel (chair), Clara Rupf, George Goddard, James Laird-Smith and Penny Sadeghi, Portrait of a Tudor as a young Al (OO) faced Remember, big speaks gaps are homophobic (Joe Roussos and Imogen Harper-Lawrence, OG, Oxford), I guess technically ...

[caption id="attachment_34093" align="alignleft" width="150"] View of Lake Jasna, Kranjska Gora - © Duncan Crowe[/caption] With over 225 participants, including students, teachers and trainers the World Schools Debate Academy 2018, the biggest version of the WSDA so far, came to a successful end after taking place from the 23rd to 30th of June. The WSDA is a debate academy that teaches school students between the ages of 13 to 18 everything about debating in the World Schools Debating format in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. The students participate in a very intense week of debate training, followed by a three day tournament. The educational part of ...

The weekend of May 26th and 27th featured this year's Vienna IV, chief-adjudicated by Alex Moise and Monica Forman and, as every year, complemented by a Schnitzel night and a post-final karaoke. In the final, judged by Elaye Karstadt (chair), Monica Forman, Alex Moise, Huyen Nguyen and Katrin Fallmann, BGU A (OO, Ayal Hayut-Man and Noa Ovadia) prevailed over The von Shap Family (OG, Yonathan Shapira and Michael Shapira), Belgrade DCA (CG, Ilija Ivanišević and Miloš Marjanović) and Jenseits von Vergleich und Analyse (CO, Philipp Müller and Calyxx Peucker) on the motion "This House believes that consent isn't the solitary ...

On May 11th and 12th, the annual Paris Open, featuring its traditional wine tasting during rounds, took place. Chief-adjudicated by Yair Har-Oz, Shrishty Krishnamoorthy and Harish Natarajan, the tournament was won by the team Michael and Desmond (Michael Dunn-Goekjan and Desmond Fairall, OO) against If you can't beat them, join them (Floris Holstege and Tom Manor, OG), Break ou Grève (Martin Devenney and Nissrine Majdi, CG), and Wild Chicken University Z (Jacob Lan and Joseph Xiao Liang, CO on the motion ‘This House believes that Wakanda should transition into a democracy.’ (with infoslide). The panel judging this final consisted of ...

[caption id="attachment_33925" align="alignright" width="400"] Left to right: Dan Lahav (CA), Idan Bressler (Winner), Amichay Even Chen (Winner), Ido Kotler (Best Speaker), Duncan Crowe (CA) - © Annie Schwartz[/caption] After a weekend in Greece the Athens Open 2018 got won by ‘Tel Aviv A’ (Amichay Even Chen and Idan Bressler). They spoke in the final from Opening Government defeating ‘Novi Sad kenobi’ (Jovan Petronijević and Milos Marjanovic) in Opening Opposition, ‘Tel Aviv - You’ve been struck by a smooth POI’ (Annie Schwartz and Gil Peled) in Closing Government, and ‘Random nomen graecum’ (Roy Schulman and Elaye Karstadt) in Closing Opposition on the motion ‘This house believes that the general approach of states ...

[caption id="attachment_33868" align="alignleft" width="400"] Winners of the Nottingham Trent Open (Alex Yeadon, left, Ciara Berry, right) - © Ciara Berry[/caption] Congratulations to the winners of the Nottingham Trent Open, ‘Nottingham A’ (Ciara Berry and Alex Yeadon). They won the final from Opening Government defeating ‘Iron-Men Unite!’ (Craig McDonald, formerly Cardiff, and Dan Wood, Birmingham) in Opening Opposition, ‘Nottingham B’ (Emily Dormer and Dimosthenis Kaldis) in Closing Government, and ‘NTU Nice For What?’ (Neal Tank and David Farmer) in Closing Opposition on the motion ‘Supposing feasibility, This House supports the establishment of a Queer Republic.’ The final was judged by Elliot Porter in ...

Congratulations to the winners of the MDX Open, ‘When Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt’ (Srishti Krishnamoorthy-Cavell, Cambridge, and Eitan Har-Oz, formerly The Hebrew University of Jerusalem). They won the final from Closing Government defeating ‘He thinks he's the pro’ (Francesca Reynolds, UCL, and Greg Weaving, unaffiliated) in Opening Government, ‘LSE Bramworth’ (Josh Ashworth and Daniel Bramble) in Opening Opposition, and ‘Basic White Girl and Token Male’ (Rachel O’Nunain and Louis Collier, Oxford) in Closing Opposition on the motion ‘This House believes that the pursuit of social mobility is doing more harm than good’. The final was judged by Nisha Telesford ...

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="281"] The Winner of the tournament, USA Red - © ZIP[/caption] The team USA Red (Ella Michaels, Nikhil Ramaswamy, Ranen Miao) has won the 16th International Debate Tournament Ljutomer, Slovenia from opposition on the motion "TH regrets privatisation of space research and travel" against Logos Bermuda (Vasja Grošelj, Iza Jerman, Taja Kovačič) from Slovenia in proposition. The final was judged by Anna England Kerr (England) in chair, together with John Tomlinson (England), Ela Jurko (Croatia), Luka Baković (Croatia) and Ann-Sophie Zeipekkis (Germany). The best speaker of the tournament was Nikhil Ramaswamy from USA Red with an impressive average of 73.67 speaker points. [caption id="attachment_33763" align="alignright" width="286"] The final of the tournament - © ZIP[/caption] The tournament was held from the 8th ...