[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_35730" align="alignright" width="400"] Tom Manor and Noam Dahan - © Antonina Dębska[/caption] The team Tel Aviv MD (Tom Manor, Noam Dahan) has triumphed at the European Round Robin 2019 in Warsaw. As Closing Government, the reigning EUDC champions defeated Opening Government Belgrade MS (Milos Marjanovic, Stefan Siridžanski), Opening Opposition Steven/Sella (Steven Rajavinothan, Sella Nevo) and Closing Opposition Tan/Marshall (Teck Wei Tan, Raffy Marshall). The motion read "This House prefers a world where family love was seen as unconditional as opposed to conditional". The final was judged by Gigi Gil (chair), Harish Natarajan, Przemek Stolarski, Kit Mercer and Tudor Musat. Team Break: 1. Tan/Marshall ...

[caption id="attachment_35241" align="alignright" width="300"] Top Seed Carson Crane & Sukhmani Kaur (Cornell) prepare for the final round - (c) Achte Minute[/caption] The Open Champion of the North American Womxn's & Gender Minorities Debate Championship 2019 is the hybrid partnership Ella Baker (Harar Hall: Carleton/Hart House). They won from Closing Government on the motion "Assuming the public would never find out, THP historical narratives that prioritize equal representation throughout history, even if people and events need to be fabricated". Their opponents were the teams Sonia Sotomayor (Carson Crane, Sukhmani Kaur; Cornell) in Opening Government, Sunitha Krishnan (Emily Xie, Melissa Giblon; Western/Hart House) in ...

[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 LSE team Line of Control (Hamza Tariq Chaudhry, Mythili Mishra) has won the Manchester IV 2019. Out of Closing Opposition, they defeated the Opening Government Moral Metrics and Shit (Arth Mishra, Josh Ashworth, LSE), Opening Opposition Oxford present and rejected (Abhinav Bathula, Jamie Johnson; LSE/Oxford) and Closing Government something something toxic masculinity (Ciara Mitchell, Cheyenne Ong; LSE). The motion for the grand final read "THBT the scientific community should reject the view that science and religion are non-overlapping magisteria (incl. infoslide)". The final was judged by Jacklin Kwan (chair), Jason Woods, Joel Richardson, John Karellis, Maurice Coutiel, Rosie Vorri and ...

[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 ...

[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_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 ...

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. ...

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. ...

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_33181" align="alignright" width="400"] F.l.t.r.: The winners of Moscow Open Maxim Raschupkin and Mikhail Shuganov together with final judges Anna Akimova, Harish Natarajan, Monica Forman and Raffy Marshall - © Yaroslav Elistratov[/caption] The team Varvara (Maxim Raschupkin, Mikhail Shuganov) from Kazan has won the final of the Moscow Open 2017 from Opening Government on the Motion "THBT democratic states should ban and block all media outlets believed to undermine democratic values". They defeated Pink Ponies (Alexey Nogovitsin, Danil Kustin) in Opening Opposition, SUFE A (Yan Shen, Qiyu Lin) in Closing Government and 2 genders 1 cup (Ekaterina Bogma, Nikola Serafimov) in ...

The European Universities Debate Championship 2017, taking place in Tallinn, have come to an end. On the day of the finals both the last four teams of the Open track and the English as a Second Language (ESL) track came together at the Nordea Concert hall for the two finals. ...

Ido Kotler and Monica Forman from Tel Aviv won the Berlin IV 2017, speaking in Closing Opposition to the motion "This House would prefer a world where there is only one religion". [caption id="attachment_32206" align="alignright" width="400"] Chief Adjudicators van Beusekom, Irvine, Smith, Har-Oz, Large, Winners Kotler and Forman - © Jonas Huggins[/caption] As team #Reichs_tag_a_friend they beat Munich A (Melda Eren, Wladi Jachtchenko) in Opening Government,  Debating – not even once (Milla Huuskonen - Helsinki, Leo Yung - London) in Opening Opposition and Oxford A (Tommy Peto, Raffy Marshall) in Closing Government. The final was judged by Sivan Avitan in the chair, Namita Gupta, ...

[caption id="attachment_32163" align="alignright" width="400"] The GUU delegation at the Durham Open with winners Bethany Garry (standing) and Owen Mooney (green shirt) - © GUU[/caption] The Durham Open 2017 was won by GUU A (Bethany Garry and Owen Mooney) in Opening Opposition on an open motion. They debated against Consider Phlebas (Sam van Elk, Cambridge and Joe Roussos, LSE) in Opening Government, Oxford RJ (Jure Hederih and Raffy Marshall) in Closing Government and Cambridge E (Camilo Ruiz and Matt Hankin) in Closing Opposition. The final was judged by Kez Exley (C) Dee Courtney, Aislin Flynn, Rory Flynn and Chris Paschali Best speaker of the tournament was ...

[caption id="attachment_31902" align="alignright" width="400"] Enting Lee speaks as Leader Opposition in the final round of the 2017 HWS Round Robin (c) Howard and William Smith Colleges[/caption] The HWS Round Robin has claimed yet another weekend of the lives of some of the best debaters in the world. In a tradition that began at the 2016 HWS Round Robin, two judging panels watched each round and delivered oral adjudications independently, with the aggregate number of points & speaker points used to determine the break (tab here). After a struggle for team spots, which can be achieved either through winning a prestigious named tournament or ...

[caption id="attachment_31824" align="alignleft" width="215"] Winners of the Aberystwyth Open - Katrin Fallman (left) and Tommy Cave (right) - © Craig McDonald[/caption] Congratulations to ‘The Anti-Frederalist League’ (Tommy Cave, Katrin Fallman, University of West Midlands Union (Warwick and Birmingham)) for winning the Aberystwyth Open 2017. They won the final from Closing Government defeating ‘Sounds like your analysis needs a bit more nuance’ (Freddie Marshall, Warwick, Dean Foley, Manchester) in Opening Government, ‘Spanish Armanda’ (Jim McKenna, UCL, and Armand Lluka, Nottingham Trent) in Opening Opposition and ‘What do you mean this isn’t Glasgow?’ (Rayne Goddard, Hull, Abbie Green, Liverpool) in Closing Opposition on ...

[caption id="attachment_31345" align="alignright" width="163"] Winners of the Manchester IV Open Final 2017: Owen Mooney (left), Eileen De Souza (right) - © Craig McDonald[/caption] Congratulations to the three winning teams of this year’s Manchester IV! The Open Final was won by GUU Clubs of alcohol and depravity (Owen Mooney and Eileen De Souza) in Closing Government. They defeated Oxford HC (Jure Hederih and Louis Collier) in Opening Government, UCL Janeway (Martin Devenney and Leo Yung) in Opening Opposition, and Edinburgh Nevertheless, She Persisted (Ethan Silver and Nishith Hedge) in Closing Opposition on the motion “This house believes that militaries in new democracies should ...

[caption id="attachment_31316" align="alignright" width="400"] Winners of LSESU Open: Joe Mayes (left), Steven Rajavinothan (right) - © Seah Ying Ying[/caption] The team Young, Scrappy and Hungry (Joe Mayes, Steven Rajavinothan) has won the Open final of the LSESU Open 2017 from Opening Government on the motion "This house believes that history curriculums should portray in an overwhelmingly negative light all celebrated historical figures responsible for racially motivated violence. E.g. Winston Churchill, Oliver Cromwell, Charles De Gaulle." They defeated the teams ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (Joe Roussos, Tim Mooney) in Opening Opposition, Almodovar Film Club (Annie Williamson, Toby Tricks) in Closing Government and Rake unknown ...

[caption id="attachment_29710" align="alignright" width="344"] View over Warsaw - © Lennart Lokstein[/caption] The European Universities Debating Championship is over. Winner of the ESL-final is Tel Aviv A (Dan Lahav, Ayal Hayut-man) from Closing Government, thus becoming ESL-Champions, whereas the teams Tel Aviv C (Tom Manor, Noam Dahan) from Opening Government, Leiden D (Lisa Schallenberg, Simon Martina-Perez) from Opening Opposition and Leiden A (Floris Holstege, Emma Lucas) from Closing Opposition become vice ESL-Champions. The final's motion was "This house believes that western states should support breakaway regions in former Sovjet states (e.g. East Ukraine l South Ossetia) joining the Russian federation conditional on holding free and ...