Sunday, July 15, 2012

Australs 2012: Monash Gets Trophy, Final to Go Live

Current world champion Monash University will add the 2012 Australasian Intervarsity Debating Championship trophy into its cabinet after 2 of its teams reached the final. Since its conception in 1975, the grand finals of Australs had different universities fighting for the crown. Monash has shattered that record. Unbeaten #1 Monash 1 (Chris Bisset, Madeline Schultz, Kiran Iyer) will face #7 Monash 2 (Colette Mintz, Gemma Buckley, James Beavis) later in Wellington, New Zealand and the match will be aired live on their association's website and streaming channel. In the semifinal, they eliminated host Victoria University and archrival University of Sydney respectively.    

Two Asian teams, International Islamic University and Ateneo de Manila University, broke into the knockouts but fell in the octofinals. Last year, National University of Singapore went all the way to the grand final. In that same occassion, Universitas Indonesia won the ESL category. UI sent the only Indonesian team to the 2012 edition but they failed to make the cut. Japan's International Christian University and University of Macao are the finalists this year. The Indonesian twist this year is that former UI debater Melanie Tedja once partnered with one of the finalists, Monash 2's Gemma Buckley, in the 2009 Australs.

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