South Africa, Greece Launch Bid to Host WUDC 2016

Asia will host the next two World Universities Debating Championships but the tournament will head for a different continent in 2016. Bids from South Africa and Greece, two countries that have hosted WUDC before, are out with unique features for debaters to mull over until the vote next month.

University of the Witwatersrand

University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg is behind the South African bid. The bid's most attractive offer is not its yakka party or safari tour. It is the promise to create the biggest WUDC ever by accommodating at least 520 teams. No WUDC has exceeded 400 competing pairs. Another unusual part of the bid is the origin of the chief adjudicators who will not come from the home institution, country or even continent. WUDC 2013 best speaker Pam Cohn (Toronto, Durham, ULU) and Asian BP 2012 best speaker Syed Saddiq (IIU) from Malaysia have been recruited for those positions. Click here for details.

Waterfront of Thessaloniki

The other bid shouts 'Debating Comes Home'. The Debating Society of Greece wants to bring WUDC back to the land of Socrates who planted the roots of dialectics 2,400 years ago. It is billed as Thessaloniki 2016, underlining the host city, an ancient port that has turned into South Europe's party capital. Most debates would be at the University of Macedonia. The CA would be Manos Moschopoulos (Deree, ULU), one of Greece's most accomplished debaters. Click here for details.

Indonesia is part of the group of nations with the most votes (4) in the WUDC Council. The Indonesian choice in WUDC 2014 Chennai can be decisive. For Indonesian debaters, South Africa's larger cap means more teams, regardless of past results, can register but the journey to Johannesburg is longer and costlier than a trip to Greece.       

WUDC 2013: Key Results

Champions: #48 University of Monash B (James Beavis & Nita Rao)
Finalists: #2 University of Sydney B (Paul Karp & Dominic Bowes), #6 University of Auckland A (Stephanie Thompson & Ben Milsom), #24 University of Otago A (Alec Dawson & Kieran Bunn)
ESL Winners: #14ESL BRAC University A (Ratib Mortuza Ali & Aaqib Farhan Hossain)
EFL Winners: #5EFL University of Porto A (Ari da Cunha & Tiago Laranjeiro)

Top 10 Speakers
1. Pam Cohn (University of London Union A)
1. Chris Bisset (Monash University A)
3. Catherine Murphy (University of London Union A)
4. Madeline Schultz (Monash University A)
5. Paul Karp (University of Sydney B)
5. Christine Simpson (University College Dublin L&H A)
7. Dominic Bowes (University of Sydney B)
8. Elle Jones (University of Sydney B)
9. Mark Haughton (University College Dublin L&H A)
10. Seb Templeton (Victoria University of Wellington A)
10. Nita Rao (Monash University B)

Top 5 ESL Speakers
1. Martin Kiik (Harvard University C)
2. Arinah Najwa (International Islamic University A)
3. Syed Saddiq (International Islamic University A)
4. Karin Merckens (University of Leiden A)
5. Daan Welling (University of Leiden A)
5. Senna Maatoug (University of Leiden C)
5. Henk van Zullen (University of Groningen A)

Top 5 EFL Speakers
1. Ary da Cunha (University of Porto A)
2. Viktor Prlja (University of Belgrade A)
3. Rodolfo Mendez (Monterrey Institute of Technology A)
4. Radu Tiganas (University of Bucharest A)
5. David Lopez (Monterrey Institute of Technology A)

WUDC 2013: Monash Wins Again, Sets Records

Maritim Hotel Berlin - the venue of the WUDC 2013 finals

Monash reign continues in the World Universities Debating Championships. In an all-Oceania final at WUDC 2013, #48 Monash University B (James Beavis & Nita Rao) defeated #2 University of Sydney B (Paul Karp & Dominic Bowes), #6 University of Auckland A (Stephanie Thompson & Ben Milsom) and  #24 University of Otago A (Alec Dawson & Kieran Bunn).

This is Monash's third victory in a row. No other institution has done this before. It is also its fifth WUDC title, matching the record held by University of Sydney and University of Glasgow. The best speaker award also went to Melbourne-based Monash through Chris Bisset (Monash A) who shared the title with Pam Cohn (University of London Union A). Both speakers fell in the quarterfinals at the hands of Monash B.  

But what makes this Monash B triumph extra sweet is they made history as the first under-32 team that won WUDC. That would have been impossible had the council voted against the break expansion from 32 teams to 48. The landmark decision to expand the break list paved the way for a strong team with high speaker scores to compensate points dropped during the preliminary stage. #48 Monash B might have been last to break and only gathered 17 points from 9 rounds but they were the only team with that many points that broke, which means they had the highest speaker scores from the 17-point lot. Actually, Monash B's combined speaker score was even higher than #4 University of Cambridge A that had 21 points. Below #2 Sydney B, Monash B had the second highest speaker scores among the finalists. It was not suprising that Monash B whip Nita Rao got the 10th best speaker title.
 
The champions defeated the motion "This House Would Not Allow Religious Communities to Expel Members on the Basis of Views or Actions that Contradict Doctrinal Teachings" from Closing Opposition, the position from where they first won WUDC in 1999. Monash bagged the two previous WUDC titles from Opening Government.

WUDC 2013: Cinderella Teams Slay Favourites in QF

It wouldn't be Worlds if it had no surprises. In one of the quarterfinals, two lower-ranked teams sent favourites out of the 2013 World Universities Debating Championships. #48 Monash University B (James Beavis & Nita Rao), the last team to qualify into the knockouts, and #24 University of Otago A (Alec Dawson & Kieran Bunn), which come from a school that has never broken in WUDC before, defeated #1 University of London Union A (Pam Cohn & Catherine Murphy) and #8 Monash A (Chris Bisset & Madeline Schultz), who all have broken more than once.

Monash B's success would never be possible if the WUDC council had not expanded the break list from 32 to 48 at the start of the Berlin event. They are now the only under-32 team still standing at the moment. Less surprisingly, powerhouse University of Sydney will have 2 teams in the semifinals, both the highest ranked in their respective matches, opening the possibility of taking half of the spots in the final. A half-Sydney final has been done a few times before; last in 2001.

One of the teams that Sydney B eliminated was #15 International Islamic University, the last Asian team in the open competition. Besides IIU, National University of Singapore also broke into the main out rounds but their journey ended in the octofinal.

Here are the semifinal match ups:

SF 1: #5 Sydney A vs #12 St. Andrews A vs #24 Otago A vs #48 Monash B
SF 2: #2 Sydney B vs #6 Auckland B vs #10 Melbourne A vs #19 Oxford B

WUDC 2013: Open Break List; University of London #1

University of London Union A (Catherine Murphy & Pam Cohn) advanced into the elimination stage of the 2013 World Universities Debating Championship as the top-ranked team. This all-female, all-postgraduate pair harvested 24 points from nine rounds of preliminary debates. Both speakers broke last year as well but competed for their separate undergraduate institutions. Murphy debated for Trinity College Dublin while Cohn represented University of Durham. ULU is the umbrella organisation for students from around 20 schools in the University of London system. It has reached a number of WUDC finals but never won the title.

For the first time in WUDC history, 48 teams are eligible to break. The top 16 will wait when the 32 teams under them jostle for the remaining 16 octofinal slots. Two Southeast Asian teams --International Islamic University and National University of Singapore-- made the cut. A Turkish squad from Galatasaray University is also in. Powerhouses Monash University, Harvard University, Yale University, University of Queensland and New Zealand darkhorse University of Otago have 3 teams standing. Here is the full list.

1. University of London Union A (ENG) Catherine Murphy & Pam Cohn -- 24
2. University of Sydney B (AUS) Paul Karp & Dominic Bowes -- 22
3. University College Dublin L&H A (IRE) Christine Simpson & Mark Haughton -- 22
4. University of Cambridge A (ENG) Ashish Kumar & Rebecca Meredith -- 22
5. University of Sydney A (AUS) Elle Jones & Daniel Swain -- 21
6. University of Auckland A (NZL) Stephanie Thompson & Ben Milsom -- 21
7. University of Queensland A (AUS) Kirsten Price & Anthony Smith -- 21
8. Monash University A (AUS) Chris Bisset & Madeline Schultz -- 20
9. University of Oxford A (ENG) Clive Eley & Nathaniel Ware -- 20
10. University of Melbourne A (AUS) Daniel Golder & Tim Blair -- 20
11. University of Aberystwyth A (WAL) Ollie Newlan & Roberto Sarrionandia -- 20
12. St. Andrews University A (SCO) Ben Adams & Alex Don -- 20
13. University of the Witwatersrand A (SAF) Michael Maklin & Chris Wood -- 20
14. National University of Singapore A (SIN) Imran Rahim & Robin Teo -- 20
15. International Islamic University A (MAL) Syed Saddiq & Arinah Najwa -- 20
16. Victoria University of Wellington A (NZL) Richard D'Ath & Sebastian Templeton -- 19
17. Yale University B (USA) Michael Barton & Andrew Connery -- 19
18. Harvard University A (USA) Josh Zoffer & Coulter King -- 19
19. University of Oxford B (ENG) Matthew Handley & Natasha Rachman -- 19
20. University of Durham A (ENG) Ben Dory & Simon Tunnicliffe -- 19
21. Harvard University C (USA) Martin Kiik & Ben Sprung-Keyser -- 19
22. Yale University C (USA) Sesenu Woldermariam & Zach Bakal -- 19
23. University of Cambridge B (ENG) Freddy Powell & Jei Wei -- 19
24. University of Otago A (NZL) Alec Dawson & Kieran Bunn -- 19
25. University of Otago B (NZL) John Brinsley-Pirie & Kurt Purdon -- 19
26. University of New South Wales B (AUS) Angela Kintominas & Ben Williams -- 19
27. Harvard University B (USA) Julia Clark & William Ryan -- 19
28. Yale University A (USA) Max Dovala & Ben Kornfeld -- 18
29. McGill University A (CAN) Emma O'Rourke Friel & Sarah Balakrishnan -- 18
30. Trinity College Dublin Phil A (IRE) John Engle & Adam Noonan -- 18
31. University College Dublin L&H B (IRE) Michael O'Dwyer & Hannah Lucey -- 18
32. University of Queensland C (AUS) Helena Obermair & Thomas Ashby -- 18
33. Stanford University A (USA) Andrew Suciu & Emma Pierson -- 18
34. University of Queensland B (AUS) Emily Chalk & Alex O'Hara -- 18
35. Queen's University A (CAN) William Gibson & Kaya Ellis -- 18
36. Griffith University A (AUS) Jessica Musulin & Josh Taylor -- 18
37. University College Cork Phil A (IRE) Barry O'Gorman & Gearoid Wrixon -- 18
38. Monash University C (AUS) Stephen Moore & Nicole Franklin -- 18
39. University of Bristol A (ENG) Alice Coombes-Huntley & Imogen Parkes -- 18
40. University of New South Wales C (AUS) Pramudie Gunaratne & Justin Chan -- 18
41. Princeton University A (USA) Matthew Arons & Daniel Lewis -- 18
42. University of British Columbia A (CAN) Kaja Marinic & Vivian Dong -- 18
43. London School of Economics A (ENG) Yuan Yang & Jonathan Kay -- 18
44. University of Glasgow B (SCO) Graeme Cowie & Duncan Crowe -- 18
45. Bates University A (USA) Ben Smith & Catherine Djang -- 18
46. University of Otago C (NZL) Paul Hunt & Alice Sowry -- 18
47. Galatasaray University A (TUR) Engin Arikan & Akin Egemen -- 18
48. Monash University B (AUS) Nita Rao & James Beavis -- 17