[caption id="attachment_36956" align="alignright" width="455"] The Dutch victory celebration featuring European champions Katharina Margareta Jansen (4th from left), Emma Lucas (5th f.l.) Louis Honee (6th f.l.) and David Metz (7th f.l.) - © Louis Honee[/caption] The Astana EUDC 2020 has come to an end and it has been a successful tournament for the Leiden Debating Union. The Dutch debating society was able to win both the ESL and Open final and topped the ESL speaker awards as well. In the grand final, Leiden A (David Metz, Emma Lucas) took the victory out of Closing Opposition against the Opening Government Leiden C (Louis Honee, ...

[caption id="attachment_35564" align="alignright" width="400"] The winners Lorna Staines (m.), Suzanne Elliott (r.) with the chair of the final, Nishith Hedge (l.)- © TU Delft Debating Club[/caption] The 2019 edition of the Delft Open was won by the Glasgow University Union in form of the team GUU No country for told men (Lorna Staines, Suzanne Elliott) out of Closing Opposition. They defeated ET DSDC (Elian Lavrijsen, Teck Wei Tan; DSDC/Oxford) in Opening Government, DSDC Floris en Marit (Floris Holstege, Marit van den Helder; Leiden/DSDC) in Opening Opposition and DSDC JJ (Jonathan Kellogg, Jure Hederih; DSDC/Oxford) in Closing Government on the motion "THR ...

[caption id="attachment_35348" align="alignright" width="309"] Miri Muntean and Mateusz Wójtowicz - © Sara Arciszewska[/caption] The final of the Cracow Open 2019 was won by the mixed-team One knife stand (Miri Muntean, Mateusz Wójtowicz; Vienna/Warsaw) in Opening Government. They defeated the Opening Opposition Ancient Namda Matriarchs (Katrin Fallmann, Heather Robinson; Vienna/KCL), Closing Government KCL A (Darion Hotan, Seyoung Jeon) and Closing Opposition Abbas & Fazain (Abbas Azmat, Faizan Raja; Lahore) on the motion "THR rising commodification of close and intimate relationships". The debate was judged by Romée Lind (chair), Maciej Lulewicz, Markus Myllymäki, Radosław Czekan and Sonia Veltkamp. Best speaker of the tournament was Darion Hotan ...

[caption id="attachment_35192" align="alignright" width="400"] Tin Puljić, top speaker of the Leiden Open - © Marina Kojić[/caption] The team Oxford Traitors A (Gigi Gil, Tommy Peto; Oxford) has won the final of the Leiden Open 2019. Out of Opening Opposition, they defeated the Opening Government ESL justice warriors (Jure Hederih, Sarah Brdnik; Oxford/Edinburgh), the Closing Government Yugoslavia A (Tin Puljić, Miloš Marjanović; Zagreb/Belgrade) and the Closing Opposition British Manufacturing Jobs - Coming to a Country Near You (Duncan Crowe, Sheraz Qureshi; Alumni). The motion read "This house believes that 'Dulce et Decorum Est pro Patria Mori' (i.e. the belief that it is sweet ...

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. ...

Congratulations to ‘William of Orange is the New Black’ (Monica Forman, Tel Aviv, and Melda Eren, Munich [caption id="attachment_31959" align="alignright" width="146"] Monica Forman and Melda Eren - (c) Craig McDonald[/caption] and UDCH) for winning the Open Final of the Erasmus Rotterdam Open 2017. They won the final from Opening Government defeating ‘She's not that mean in prep.’ (Romée Lind and Jop Flameling, no institution) in Opening Opposition, ‘Devid’ (Devin van den Berg and David Metz, Leiden) in Closing Government, and ‘Privileged Angry Men’ (Philipp R. Mueller, Munich, and Calyxx Peucker, UDCH) in Closing Opposition on the motion ‘This House Regrets the dominance ...