WORLDS UNIVERSITIES DEBATING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Overview

The World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) is the world's largest

debating tournament, and one of the largest annual international student events in
the world. It is a parliamentary debating event, held using a variant of the British
Parliamentary Debate format. Each year, the event is hosted by a university
selected by the World Universities Debating Council. The tournament is colloquially
referred to as "Worlds". The tournament started 31 years ago and has grown both
in terms of diversity and in magnitude.

History of the World Debating Championships

This History of the World Debating Championships comes in 3 parts. From 1976 to
1990 it is taken almost word for word (with the exception of a section on the 1972
Sydney claim and the 1978 World Debating Festival both by Colm Flynn) from the
1991 Toronto WUDC Tournament booklet. Who wrote it isn't known but it was
provided by Randal Horobik. At the start of the section on Worlds in 1981 is an
extract from an e-mail by Clark McGinn, Convenor of Debates, GU Union 1980 -81
and 1981 and Convenor of the First World Debating Competition, 1981. The history
since 1991 has been compiled by Colm Flynn, Chair of Worlds Council 2002 and
DCA 2003.

THE ORIGINS OF WORLD DEBATING

taken from the 1991 WUDC tournament booklet

Many countries share the credit for the survival and growth of world university
debating over the past 15 years. North Americans remember the University of
London’s hospitality in the mid-to-late 1970s. The Worlds would certainly not have
been possible without the strong McGill initiative and Glaswegian involvement in the
early 1980s. But it is the flashes of brilliance, moments of laughter, lightning wit,
and sustained participation of debaters drawn to the competition from around the
world is what makes the Worlds possible - and worth holding - today.

International parliamentary debating goes back to at least the early 20th Century,
when teams from Oxford toured the United States. Later, in the 1950s, debaters
were sent from England to tour in India, among other places, as well as the United
States. Women took part to the extent permitted by their institutions. One woman
won a place on a 1954 tour representing the Queen Margaret Union at Glasgow,
only to be rejected by higher authorities for reasons of gender. While not allowed to
join the Glasgow Union, women could and did participate full in the debates there.
This was actually more egalitarian than hart House at the University of Toronto,
which did not admit women as members until 1972. until then, women could be
accompanied to formal debates, but they had to sit in the gallery and were not
allowed to speak.

Canadians and Americans have competed with each other regularly for many years.
While strictly speaking these were international competition, they were not terribly
exotic. However, these tournaments laid a solid foundation for later adventures into
the rest of the world.

The past years of multilateral competition are rife with tales of people who spent a
great deal of time cold, wet, broke, lost, tired, making great friends in the adversity
and generally having the time of their lives (in retrospect). In that respect, debating
is the same wherever you do it. Hosting a world tournament has sometimes been an
unsought honor. More than once, the school that actually hosted the Worlds was the
one that kindly offered to step in when the successful bidder’s organization fell
apart.

1976 London TAUSA

International tournaments find their beginnings in the spring of 1976, when the first
Trans-Atlantic University Speech Association (TAUSA) tournament was held in
London, England, hosted by the University of London and organized by John Telfer.
About 50 teams attended, including Oxford (who won) and possibly Cambridge. For
either, let along both, to attend was unusual; normally the Oxbridge people would
only compete with each other. Funds were provided by an Anglo-American
committee for the celebration of the U.S. Bicentennial. Telfer himself was a
university administration official of some kind, and organized the event through
contacts with individuals rather than university debating societies.

1977 McGill TAUSA

In January of 1977, the second TAUSA tournament, a McGill-Loyola production, was

held in Montreal. About 60 teams competed and Matt Morley and Samuel Abady
(not Jonathan Kessler and Cobwesk Boski as earlier believed) from Colgate in the
United States claimed the debating victory. The public speaking competition was
won by Gray’s Inn, England. The TAUSA tournament replaced McGill’s Winter
Carnival tournament that year, and the TAUSA winners are rumored to be engraved
on the McGill Tournament trophy.

1978 London TAUSA

In April of 1978, the third and final TAUSA took place in England, hosted again by
the University of London. About 70 teams attended, and the Glasgow Union took
first place. Michael McCulloch and David Shulman for Victoria University placed
second.
THE 1978 WORLD DEBATING FESTIVAL: The "HONEYWELL"

1978 also saw another of the fore runners to the World Debating Championships.
The World Debating Festival (often called the Honeywell although this is because it
was sponsored by Honeywell International). This was hosted by the University of
Sydney Union. The competition was held in Australian style (teams of 3 two teams
in a debate) and featured a team each from Glasgow (Sco), Cambridge (UK), Oxford
(UK), Columbia (US), Harvard (US), Oregon (US), Adelaide (Aus), Melbourne (Aus),
Monash (Aus), Sydney (Aus), Western Australia (Aus), Auckland (NZ), Cantebury
(NZ). The University of Sydney (Adams, ?, ?) won the competition beating Oxford
(O'Shaughnessy, Harrison & Sterling) in the final. A mini tour was then provided for
teams who had travelled to Australia with additional debates taking place in
Newcastle and Western Australia. The trophy for the competition was stolen
immediately after the final and never recovered. On 6th January 2000 an article in
the "University of Sydney News" claimed that the World Debating Championships
were first held by Sydney in 1972. there is no further information about this 1972
competition although it may be possible that they are confused about the World
Debating Festival and the year in which it was held.

THE YEARS BETWEEN TAUSA AND WUDC

largely taken from the 1991 WUDC tournament booklet with some addition by Colm
Flynn

In the TAUSA years, there was no formal world debating organization; the schools
attending one year just voted on where the tournament would be held the following
year. Often the coordination was left to individuals in each country. For example
the US contact was Larry Frank of St Lawrence College. However with no budget for
TAUSA most of the limited number of debating societies in US colleges didn't even
know TAUSA existed. Dispite this Chicago was selected in 1978 as the site for the
fourth TAUSA, set for April of 1979, in place of the University of Chicago’s usual April
tournament. April of 1979 came and went. The Chicago TAUSA had been postponed
several times for a number of reasons, including conflict with a Papal visit to
Chicago. By the fall of 1979, it was clear that formal world debating competition had
missed a year. But the transatlantic spirit had taken hold. Undaunted by the
collapse of the Chicago event, McGill invited a few UK schools to its Winter Carnival
tournament. The Scots came over in February of 1980 for the McGill tournament;
Glasgow was the only UK school to attend.

The Glaswegians toured North American in one or more of the fall of 1979; the
spring of 1980; the fall of 1980 stopping variously at Dalhousie and McGill, and
possibly Ottawa and Toronto. In the wake of the collapse of the Chicago
organization, they expressed interest in an international tournament to replace
TAUSA, whether in Glasgow or North America, for the following year.
While touring a number of schools in 1980 and possibly late 1979, the Glaswegians
discovered a great deal of enthusiasm for the idea of a world tournament in
Glasgow the following year, and collected much valuable and profitable intelligence
of which they were to make use in the near future. In a letter dated 22 October
1980, Clark McGinn formally extended invitations to “the first ever World
Competition Debate to be held in Glasgow University Union.” The World Debating
Championships were underway.

WHY DID WE MOVE FROM TAUSA TO THE WORLD DEBATING

CHAMPIONSHIPS

by Clark McGinn, Convenor of the First World Debating Competition, 1981,

TAUSA ( and the similar Honeywell) - were ad hoc competitions - TAUSA had no
Australian/NZ (or Irish??) teams involved while Honeywell had no Irish or Canadian.
Both were invitation competitions whereas the First Worlds set out to be (a) more
open and (b) cover all of the world (or at least, initially, both North Americans, both
ANZ and all four British Isles and the Caribbean).There are more details in the
Minute Books of the GUU debates committee.

Ironically, the first idea for Worlds had been a TAUSA-like competition with the top 3
teams from each region who would have arisen out of local competitions and then
'Mace-like' be flown-to the Union to have the final rounds - but in 1981 in a UK
recession, there was no sponsorship at all - so they made the competition into an
open tournament. Thankfully!

THE WORLD TOURNAMENTS

Glasgow 1981

The first Worlds was hosted in Scotland in January, 1981 by the Glasgow Union and
organized by Clark McGinn. 43 teams competed from 7 nations. Registration was
£10 but teams from outside the British Isles paid no registration as they were at a
financial disadvantage for travelling so far. In exchange for this fee there was a
promise of "a bed for every competitor". There were four days of debating with a
day off in the middle to visit Edinburgh, and then the finals. Steve Coughlan and
Andrew Taylor took home the first place honors for the University of Toronto,
defeating John Rankin and Marcel Mongeon of McGill. Andrew Taylor also took
home the best speaker award. It was a strong year for Canada; three of the top four
teams were Canadian. Not many English schools attended; they thought Glasgow
was too far from home. It was Scotland. It was winter. It was raining. The Canadians
couldn’t believe how warm it was. The Americans couldn’t believe how cold it was.
While reports from the championship are rare the history of APDA reports "the
creation and infrastructure of that tournament took on soap-operatic dimensions".
One indirect result of the championships was the foundation of APDA itself. As 4 US
debaters (Princeton's David Martland & Richard Sommer and Amherst's David Bailin
& J. J. Gertler) toured Scotland after the championships plans for APDA were drawn
up in the back of a Ford Cortina.

Hart House Toronto 1982

The University of British Columbia won the bid for the 1982 tournament. A letter
sent out by Joe Pollender in the fall of 1981, however, cites a 42-day Canadian
postal strike as the cause for a change in the program. The second Worlds was
moved to the University of Toronto and organized by the undefending champions,
Steve Coughlan and Andrew Taylor, when the UBC effort fell apart. About 40 teams
competed, with first place going to Stuart Bugg and David Kidd of the University of
Auckland, New Zealand. Stuart Bugg was the best speaker. The dinner hosted by
the Royal Commonwealth Society at Casa Loma was a high point of the tournament.
In return for such wonderful hospitality, a debate featuring one competitor from
each of the six countries represented was presented as after dinner entertainment.
Debaters included Andrew Taylor, representing Canada; J.J. Gertler for the United
States; Anthony Fisher of Australia; David Kidd from New Zealand and Clark McGinn,
the Scot. The best line was from Anthony Fisher: “the Queen is the only person in
the world without an accent.” The Royal Commonwealth Society was pleased. That
year, an idea arose that one year’s winners should become the following year’s
hosts, as this system had worked so well for the second Worlds. Auckland was duly
selected as the site for the 1983 Worlds.

Princeton 1983

Princeton took up the torch when the University of Auckland failed to organize a
tournament. There had been a great deal of talk of subsidized airfare to New
Zealand, but this all suddenly went quiet. Frank McKiergan and John Nicholson of
Glasgow Dialectic met and defeated a University of Toronto team of Jeff Nankivell
and Francis Daniels. John Geisnell is recorded as the best speaker but his University
is not known. For better or worse, the World Debates council was formed at this
tournament. The general idea was to get a bit more organized, and possibly prevent
world tournaments from evaporating completely. Prior to that, issues such as the
next tournament location and haggling over who should get to go had been decided
by a general meeting of all teams present. Given the track record on bidding and
hosting the tournament, a World Council probably couldn’t hurt.
Edinburgh 1984

The 1984 Worlds was hosted by the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Sixty-four
teams competed, and the University of Sydney beat Oxford to bring the first place
honors to Australia. A number of people went to Glasgow afterwards to film “Mr.
Speaker, Sir!” for the BBC. Willie Hamilton was on one side; Nicholas Tolstoi on the
other, on a resolution abolishing the monarchy.

McGill (Montreal) 1985

In 1985, the Worlds returned to Canada. Hosted by McGill University in Montreal, it

was run by Scott Keating, Melanie Garret and Elizabeth Jarvis. A total of 120 teams
took part, in the grand McGill tradition of tournament on a grand scale. The final
round was held in Redpath Hall. Judges included Francis Fox, former Solicitor
General. Marcel Mongeon and Trish Dodge hosted a reception for the overseas
debaters, at which guests met former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Mr. Trudeau
was in a bit of a rush, however, and had to leave early to take his kids to karate
class. That year, Sean Murphy and Damian Crawford took home a richly deserved
first place for King’s Inn, Dublin.

Fordham (New York) 1986

In 1986, Fordham University in New York hosted the Worlds. Over 100 teams
attended, including competitors from Sweden, and Jesuit University in the
Philippines. University College Cork (Brian Hassett & Siobhain Lankford), won the
competition for Ireland making it 2 in a row for the Irish. The format of the
competition saw 14 preliminary round debates between teams of 2 and two teams
per debate. The final motion was on censorship of the press.

UC Dublin 1987

In 1987, University College, Dublin hosted the worlds in Ireland. It must have felt
like the world showed up, too. The local newspaper reported that 220 teams were
there. Even if that turned out to be 220 people, it was a sizeable invasion. Glasgow
(Kevin Sneader & Austin Lally) were the World champion that year. New Year’s Eve
was a study in contrasts as the debaters who gathered in evening attire for a cold
buffet in the Lord Mayor’s Hall found themselves ringing in the new year next door
to a heavy metal rock concert, complete with “a bunch of guys in leather jackets
and girls in red lipstick cracking gum.” The importance of understanding local
cuxtoms was amply demonstrated to all who had not found out ahead of time that
Dublin offers no public transportation on new Year’s Eve. The evening ended with
what is variously described as a rainy two, three or four mile walk in formal wear.

Sydney 1988

At the Worlds in Sydney in 1988, had 90 teams. Oxford brought the first place
trophy home to England, while Francis Greenslade (Adelaide) was best speaker.
Competition and judging conventions differed from one Worlds to the next, and part
of the idea is to do things according to the customs of the host school. Some
competitors, used to making frivolous definitions, were disconcerted with a certain
Australian rule aimed at banning such frivolity. If a resolution lent itself to
economics, for example, you had to debate economics. This led to at least on
unfortunately literal debate about whether it really was better to live on your knees
than die on your feet.

Princeton 1989

Princeton hosted the 1989 Worlds. Aaron Blumenfeld and company ran the event,
which was won by the previous year’s hosts, Sydney, Andrew Bell and Warren Lee.
Second place was won by Justin MacGregor and Dave Conklin of the University of
Toronto. About 110 teams attended. That year saw a marked increase in
international participation. Singapore and Greece attended; the Soviet Union sent
observers and competed the next year at Glasgow. There were a lot of prizes,
including, for the first time, recognition for debaters for whom English was a second
language. The format was 10 preliminary rounds with teams of two and two teams
per debate. “This tournament will run on time,” debaters were told at every
meeting, long after they were tired of hearing it, but it worked. While not all Worlds
have featured a prepared topic, at Princeton it was “Socialism has failed.” One may
recall that 1989 was quite a year for socialism…but this was only January. How
could they have known? There were divisions for both comic and serious public
speeches, but the idea of having to stand up and know that you were expected to
be funny was more than many cared to deal with. The competition offered a
number of unusual ideas, including object speaking; a debater was handed an
object, and then had to build a speech around the object.

Glasgow 1990
Glasgow played host to the Worlds for the second time in 1990. Yale University
(Matt Wolf & John Wertheim) took home the first American victory in the history of
the tournament, over a field of about 165 teams. Hong Kong was represented, and
the American Academy in Athens, Greece returned. A Polish team was there, too.
The previous summer, a group of 10 people had toured Eastern Europe to teach
debating. One of the Soviet teams the group had met on the tour came to the
Worlds that year. Princess Anne was the honored guest at a reception for the
Debating Union Presidents before the final round. She presented the award to the
winning team from Yale, who were the victors in the finals against three Australian
teams.

WORLDS SINCE 1991

Hart House Toronto 1991

The 1991 championships were hosted by Toronto for the second time. These
championships were held under the North American style of debating which
involved just 2 teams in each debate and Double Octo-finals. The eventual winners
were McGill (Chris Wayland & Mona Gupta) defeating Dalhousie (Stephen Pitel &
John Haffner) in the final. Stephen Pitel would go on to debate for and coach
Cambridge and poineer the case book approach which would come to dominate
teams tactics at Worlds. Steve Bibas (Oxford) was the top ranked speaker.

TC Dublin 1992

Words in 1992 were hosted by Trinity College Dublin. Here around 150 teams
competed. The final was competed by 3 Australian teams ANU (who broke 1st),
Sydney A (Who broke 2nd) and Sydney B (who broke 11th). The Fourth team was
Glasgow (Robin Marshall & Gordon Peterson) won the final and the championships.
The competition was not a total disappointment for Australia as the top speaker
award was shared by James Hooke (NSW) & Richard Douglas (ANU). The winning
Glasgow team was not actually included in the initial break as the tab system failed
early on and manual calculations were used which later turned out to be flawed.
Following complaints by other colleges (not Glasgow who by their own admission
were in bed with a serious hangover) Edinburgh were dropped from 32nd position
and Glasgow were added in and had to be woken from their beds to debate in the
octo finals.
Oxford 1993

Worlds in 1993 was hosted by Oxford. The convenor was Matthew Christmas (an
apt name considering the time of year). He headed a committee which spanned 2
pages of it's booklet, a sign of things to come with the ever increasing complexity of
running Worlds. The prizes were designed to remind the winners of Oxford and so
Rowing Oars (from the famous "Boat Race") were chosen. How exactly these were
brought home by the eventual winners, Harvard (David Friedman & David
Kennedy), is not remembered. Daniel Mulino (ANU) was best speaker. Former
British Prime Minister Edward Heath addressed the championship dinner during
which the Irish and Scots discovered that the bread rolls while unpalletable made
fantastic weapons in a food fight. Worlds council had to select a new host for the
1994 championships after Sydney, who had been awarded the championships in
Trinity had to pull out. They came with another college prepared to host
(Melbourne). This caused some resentment on the council and a rival bid was
quickly presented by another college (don't remember which one). Rumour has it
this bid was presented on the back of a napkin and was voted down in favour of
Melbourne.

Melbourne 1994

Melbourne hosted the 1994 championships after the University of Sydney found
themselves unable to host having won the bid in Trinity. After 5 years of cold wet
championships this must have been a nice change for the teams in particular
Glasgow (Manus Blessing & Duncan Hamilton) who won the competition. Ben
Richards (Monash) was the top speaker. The growth of the international aspect of
the championships were seen here with teams from France, Greece, Hong Kong,
India, Israel, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea and
Zimbabwe.

Princeton 1995

Princeton hosted once again in 1995. While the overall winners were University of
New South Wales B (James Hooke & Jeremy Phillips) who defeated Oxford A (Rufus
Black & Rod Clayton) in the final the competition is perhaps most noteworthy for a
significant break through by the English as a Second Language contingent. Chitra
Jenardhanan from Nanyang in Singapore became the first ESL speaker to win the
Best speaker award in the competition. At Princeton council meeting two colleges
bid to host in 1997. Stellenbosch and Deree. After presentations and questions
Stellenbosch was selected as the host by a vote of 13-6-1. Australia also proposed
standadarisation of format to British Parlaimentary after a heated discussion
between Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Singapore and Germany in favour of
standardisation and United States and Canada against a motion was passed to
delay consideration of the issue until the following year. Princeton also had serious
problems with judge numbers. Most colleges failed to send a judge and the 2 team
per debate required twice as many judges as normal. In the preliminary rounds
many rooms had only one room. As a result the N-1 rule was mooted for future
championships thus ensuring that sufficient judges would be available but it would
not be until Stellenbosch 97 that council would vote to enforce this guideline. There
were also reports of financial irregularities and a decision of worlds council to ban
Princeton. No records of this exists but it is worth mentioning as it is often cited as
being a ban on all future teams from Princeton and a ban on any future American
hosts for worlds. Council has no such ban in place but this rumour is often quoted
as an example of the anti American bias of the council.

UC Cork 1996

Cork hosted the championships in 1996. Macquarie (Fenja Berglund and Ben Way)
won the competition with Adam Spencer (Sydney) as best speaker. The final was
held in Cork City hall and highlights were televised by the Irish National broadcaster
RTE. There were a number of problems at this championships which combined to
give a bad perception of the championships as a whole. The Tab system was
missing several results or had results entered incorrectly resulting in a Princeton
team losing out on a break position. Official results were never released although a
team tab was circulated in the US and, in the absence of any is now taken as the
Cork Tab. The Tab also could not guarantee a 3,2,2,2 for positions with all teams.
Council requested that position allocation be made crucial in future championships.
This caused serious problems with future tab systems generating large brackets of
3 or 4 points in rounds 4 and 8 combined with a popular move back to pure power
pairing instead of brackets to protect the top teams, for future championships.
Finally while most championships with debate problems could rely on successful
social events to offset the ill feeling Cork’s social events were seen as poor. A
“Pizza night” was reduced to farce when the pizza company could only deliver ~12
pizzas every 30 minutes to a room full of 1000 debaters. The resulting ugly scene
of dozens of people fighting for one pizza was captured by local media and featured
on the front page of the next day’s local newspaper with the headline “Talk your
way out of this one”. A comedy night featuring a wet tee-shirt competition also did
not go down well. The Championships were also note worthy for two decisions by
Worlds Council. Firstly the creation of the Deputy Chief Adjudicator position to
make sure that the interests of debaters outside the host nation was represented on
the organising committee. Secondly this council voted on the Australian motion
from the previous year to standardise to the British Parliamentary style rather than
allow the host to decide the style. As in Princeton this was an extremely
contentious decision and at one stage featured a walk out by delegates who were
either opposed to standardisation or favoured another style. The motion was
passed and for better or worse this paved the way to the creation of Worlds Rules
as we know them.

Stellenbosch 1997

In 1997 the Championships were hosted in Africa for the first time by the University
of Stellenbosch. In fact this was the first time a host nation came from outside the
original 7 nations (called the “Charter” nations). After the problems with the
previous two charter nation worlds (Princeton & Cork) this gamble by Worlds Council
paid handsome as Stellenbosch 97 is widely regarded as the benchmark worlds
setting new standards against which all future Worlds would be measured. This was
in spite of a campaign by some American debaters to boycott the championships as
they were being held in the birthplace of aparthide and an outbreak of Ebola in
Africa which had the World's media in overdrive. The competition ran smoothly and
the social events in warm African summer were very successful following two cold
climate worlds. This was also the first championships to have Deputy Chief
Adjudicators to provide external expertise to the organiaing committee Ray D'Cruz
and John Long being the first to fill the role. Stellenbosch also struggled with the
number of judges. As a result the council finally voted to enforce the N-1 rule for all
future championships. Council at Stellenbosch voted to introduce verbal
adjudications after the first 6 preliminary rounds. The ESL Final was contested by 2
teams from Singapore, one from the Philippines and one from Greece and NU
Singapore emerver with the win. The main competition was won by Glasgow A
(Andy Hume and Derek Sloan) who were faced with the task of taking a large trophy
in the shape of an Elephant home. It had to be carried into the final by 4 men.
Andy George was best speaker.

Deree Athens 1998

1998 saw a mainland Europe country host for the first time. Deree College Athens
hosted the championships billing itself as “Debating coming home”. Grays Inns A
(Neil Sheldon and Andy George) won the competition with Neill Sheldon also taking
the top speaker award. The championships were also saw the change in voting
rights on council which loosened the grip of the “Charter” nations and rewarded
countries who sent the most teams. The council also voted to set up a World
Debating Committee to work on issues between championships. There were
problems with delays and judges continually judging at the same level (i.e. the top 3
judges would be in the top room and the bottom 3 ranked judges always judged the
bottom room). This lead to frustration among the judges seeing a steady stream of
weak teams (and frustrated teams seeing a constant stream of weak judges),
culminating in a large no show from bottom ranked judges at a delayed round 9. As
a result of this the concepts of top ranked “chair” judges in every room and rotating
judges around the tab became common. Athens had ESL semi finals for the first
time to allow the top 8 ESL teams break. Athens were the first championships to
publish results during the competition. While this did not meet the requirements of
Council in Stellenbosch (for which Athens were criticised) it was the first time teams
had a clear picture of how they were performing at the end of each day. For many
debaters Athens is best remembered for Mike's bar. A bar located in between the
two championship hotels. The fact that the official social events did not meet with
widespread approval helped Mike claim he could put his children through college
from the profits of that week.

Ateneo Manila 1999

1999 saw the trend of first time host continents with the first Asian host, Ateneo de
Manila in the Philippines. There was advance discussion on some American/IONA
lists as to the safety of the Philippines and then the Asian Economy collapsed
creating a financial headache for organisers and participants alike. During the
championships some small problems initially occured with registration and the Tab
system which were fixed by the adjudication team. After that the championships
are seen as a tremendous success, possibly the most successful. This first Asian
Championships saw a large number of non-Charter Nations break. Philippines broke
3 teams (one to the Qtr-Finals), South Africa 2 (Witwatersrand reached the Semi-
Finals) Singapore and Pakistan (Qtr-finals) broke 1 team each. Monash A (Meg
O’Sullivan and Andrew Phillips) won the competition while Andy Kidd (Oxford) was
best speaker. The Grand final was televised live in the Philippines and opened by
President Joseph Estrada. Manila also saw as new competition "The World Masters".
This was a competition open to adjudicators and observers and run on a national
basis rather than by college. Ireland were the first winners. At council Israel
objected to the ESL competition rules. They felt that some of the teams in the ESL
competition were not genuine ESL and that dropping the ESL semis (which Manila
had done) was unfair to genuine ESL teams (their third motion requesting printed
material be banned whish was heavily defeated). After a long discussion these first
two ESL issues were left to the following year.

Sydney 2000

University of Sydney hosted the championships in 2000. The championships were

delayed by around a week so that participants could celebrate the Millennium at
home with their families. This meant that a few hardy souls risked the Millennium
Bug and were able to get cheap flights on near empty flights departing on New
Year’s day. This was seen as a championship that again raised the bar in terms of
standards expected of the host. An opening night harbour cruise around the most
beautiful natural harbour left people wondering how the host committee could keep
this up for the week. They did. A popular Sydney initiative was an effort to help
everyone, not just those who drank, to enjoy the social events. In this regard all
soft drinks were available at a substantially reduced price. This was also a
championship of records as Monash University became the first college to
successfully defend the title, this time through Kim Little and Cathy Roussow. Andy
Kidd (Oxford) also became the first speaker on record to top the speaker tab two
years in a row. At council the concerns of the ESL competition carried over from the
previous year were dealt with. The ESL honour system was replaced by a "barrier
test" and teams breaking in the main competition would be excluded from the ESL
competition. After the competition things started to go a little wrong, the Tab
system had a major bug. When they tried to export the results to publish them the
system wiped all the data. While they were able to publish the team tab only the
top 80 speakers could be recovered.

Glasgow 2001

The 2001 championships returned to Glasgow for it’s 21st birthday. After 4 years of
warm (or at least very mild) climates hosting the championship the participants
were greeted with the heaviest snow fall in living memory at Glasgow. Round 9 had
to be cancelled after large numbers of teams were struck down with some form of
illness by the pleasant name "Winter Vomiting Bug". However as the round one
motion was announced at the wrong time in the adjudication briefing and another
had to be used we still got 9 motions if not 9 debates. On top of this the tab system
which was based on a "fixed" version of the Sydney tab turned out to be even worse
than the Sydney version. At least one team were excluded from the break
(Cambridge) and it took several months before the results were finally published. In
addition there were several complaints that the social events revolved completely
around the consumption of large amounts of alcohol. Despite all this Sydney (Greg
O'Mahony and Paul Hunyor) came through to win and Paul Hunyor also took home
the best speaker award. A prize of a large "Brave heart" style sword for the winning
team must have made for an interesting conversation at customs.

Hart House Toronto 2002

Toronto hosted the championships in 2002 and once again the participants
prepared for vast quantities of snow. Record levels of snow fell 40Km south of
Toronto and 40km North of Toronto but not a flake was spotted in Toronto during
the championships. Ewan Smith topped the speaker tab for Oxford. Perhaps
fittingly considering the Tragic events of just 3 months before (and ironically
considering they held a rival "international" competition of 12 months before in
which only US teams were permitted to debate), New York University Law (Rob
Weekes and Alan Merson) won the championships for the United states, the first
time since 1993 that an American team won. Ewan Smith (oxford) was the top
ranked speaker. The motions at these championships were considered insensitive
by many debaters as they covered topics such as Sept 11, Rape, and Anorexia.
Many debaters will remember the championships for the 5 star hotel the Royal York
in particular the roaming groups security guards trying, unsuccessfully, to prevent
room parties. Others will remember the championships for a scandal which finished
off the Welsh (if you don't know what that means you are better off). Worlds
Council saw three nations bidding to host 2004 Croatia, Malaysia, Singapore. This
selection process was marred by controversy over the voting allegiances. The
Malaysian Government did not recognise the state of Israel and in spite of written
assurances that Israeli teams would have no problem gaining entry Israeli delegates
actively organised a blocking group against Malaysia. After considerable political
manoeuvring and pressure during the council meeting (which had to be stopped
during the Croatian presentation in order to regain order around the table) this
group of nations voted for Singapore ahead of Malaysia even though a number of
the countries had promised their votes to either Malaysia or Croatia. The fact that
the decision was made on political and not debating issues left a bitter after effect
that continued for several months on mailing lists.

Stellenbosch 2003

The 2003 championships were hosted once again by Stellenbosch in South Africa.
This championships did not run as smoothly as the first Stellenbosch Worlds.
Quickly during the competition it became obvious that problems existed with the
tab system which had been tested but with pre-prepared data which clearly didn't
mimic live conditions. A series of small errors in the design or manual use of the
tab system caused serious delays on Day 1 (finished at 11pm) and Day 2 (round 6
moved to the next day). Another all night session by the tab and adjudication
teams saw a marked improvement in the running of the competition on day 3. Four
rounds were held in quick succession up to round 9 when after loading in the key
adjudication panels, carefully prepared by the adjudication team, the panels were
accidently randomised due to a manual error while exporting to the display system.
This resulted in some quick reworking of the panels in particular to avoid conflicts of
interest which had not been eliminated by the system due to the late
randomisation. However after all that the break was announced on time on New
years night. The rest of the competition ran smoothly and throughout the
championship the social events were generally considered outstanding helping to
keep many people happy and win back some of those who had been annoyed with
the earlier parts of the competition. Also helping to make up for all the earlier
problems Cambridge B (Jack Anderson & Caleb Ward) won probably the best and
tightest final in worlds history. They won on a split 5-2 decision just ahead of
Melbourne A (Perry Herzfeld & Sarah Kennedy). Monash B and Cambridge A were
also in the final.

NTU Singapore 2004

In 2004 saw the championships hosted by Nanyang University in Singapore who

defeated Malaysia and Croatia for the right to host. Before the competition
Singapore faced several difficulties. Their Chief Adjudicator Amanda Keamass
resigned to take up a new job offer. The replacement Ravi Visnawathan was a
relative unknown and this caused some concern when he initially announced that
he would speak in Stellenbosch and not adjudicate. This would have meant he had
no adjudication experience at Worlds prior to being Chief Adjudicator. However he
did adjudicate break rounds in Stellenbosch and their bid was ratified at council in
Toronto. After that in early 2003 concerns were raised about the SARS virus
sweeping through Asia but in reality it was not a serious threat to the
championships. After all this the Championships themselves were a great success.
The Middle Temple team of Alex deane & Jermery Brier defeated Sydney, Singapore
Institute of Management and Inner Temple in the final. Worlds Council however did
not run as smoothly. Council refused to ratify Zagreb as hosts for 2005. Concerns
were raised about the adjudication and financial aspects of the bid. 24 hours later
Zagreb returned with a modified proposal but again this was rejected by Council. At
this stage the bidding was reopened for 2005 and MMU Malaysia bid unopposed.
After all that UC Dublin won the right to host in 2006 again unopposed.

MMU Malaysia 2005

In 2005 the championships were hosted by Multimedia University in Malaysia. Even

though they had just a year to organise the competition the championships were
generally seen as a success. This was a good championships for Canada as Ottawa
A (Erik Eastaugh & Jamie Furniss) won defeating Cambridge A (Daragh Grant & Joe
Devanney), Oxford. D (Alex Just & Jonathan Bailey) and Hart House B (Michael Kotrly
& Joanna Nairn) in the final. Worlds council awarded the University of British
Columbia the right to host Worlds in 2007. Sydney University were unsuccessful
bidders and the Dublin Bid was ratified smoothly.
Best Speakers of the Tournament

Year Top Speaker University

2010 Shengwu Li University of Oxford (England)
2009 Naomi Oreb University of Sydney (Australia)
2008 Sam Block University of Cambridge (England)
2007 Jessica Prince University of Oxford (England)
Rory Gillis
2006 Yale University (United States)
Elizabeth O'Connor
2005 Kylie Lane Monash University (Australia)
2004 Alex Croft University of Sydney (Australia)
2003 Wu-Meng Tan University of Cambridge (England)
2002 Ewan Smith University of Oxford (England)
2001 Paul Huynor University of Sydney (Australia)
2000 Andy Kidd University of Oxford (England)
1999 Andy Kidd University of Oxford (England)
1998 Neil Sheldon Gray's Inn (England)
1997 Andy George Gray's Inn (England)
1996 Adam Spencer University of Sydney (Australia)
1995 Chitra Jenardhanan Nanyang Technological University (Singapore)
1994 Ben Richards Monash University (Australia)
1993 Daniel Mulino Australian National University (Australia)
Richard Douglas Australian National University (Australia)
1992
James Hooke University of New South Wales (Australia)
1991 Steve Bibas University of Oxford (England)
1990 No information
1989 John Gastil Swarthmore College (United States)
1988 Francis Greenslade University of Adelaide (Australia)
1987 Michael Hall University of Oxford (England)
1986 Bruce Meagher University of Sydney (Australia)
1985 Michael ? University of Oxford (England)
1984 David Celermeyer University of Sydney (Australia)
1983 John Geissnell
1982 Stuart G. Bugg University of Auckland (New Zealand)
1981 Andrew Taylor University of Toronto (Canada)

English as a second language competition winners

Year English as a Second Language Competition Winners

2010 Tel Aviv University (Israel)
2009 Babeş-Bolyai University (Romania)
2008 University of Amsterdam (Netherlands)
2007 International Islamic University Malaysia (Malaysia)
2006 Erasmus University (Netherlands)
2005 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (Malaysia)
2004 National University of Singapore (Singapore)
2003 National University of Singapore (Singapore)
2002 Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel)
2001 Ateneo de Manila University (Philippines)
2000 National University of Singapore (Singapore)
1999 University of Santo Tomas (Philippines)
1998 St. Stephen's College (India)
1997 National University of Singapore (Singapore)
1996 Deree College (Greece)
1995 Nanyang Technological University (Singapore)
1994 Stellenbosch University (South Africa)
1993 University of Delhi (India)
1992 no information
1991 University of Delhi (India)
1990 no information
1989 no information

English as a foreign language competition winners

Year English as a Foreign Language Competition Winners

2010 Moscow State Institute of International Relations (Russia)
2009 Vilnius University (Lithuania)
2008 Keio University (Japan)
2007 Tsinghua University (China)

Masters competition winners

Year Masters competition winner

2010 Vanuatu
2009 Ireland
2008 Guinea-Bissau
2007 Canada
2006 Canada
2005 Australia
2004 Australia
2003 England
2002 Canada
2001 Scotland
2000 Australia
1999 Ireland

Public Speaking competition winners

Year Winner University

[3]
2010 Riva Gold
2009 Patrick Bateman
2008 Jason Joseph Rogers
2007 Michael Imeson
2006 O'Neill Simpson
2005 Rahim Moloo
2004 Irma Nur Zahrah Bt. Junian International Islamic University Malaysia (Malaysia)
2003 Ajit Singh
2002 Roy Wiesner
2001 Andrew Zadel
2000 Benet Brandreth
1999 Diarmuid Conway
1998 James McDermott
1997 James McDermott
1996 Benet Brandreth
1995 Paul Ciufo[4]
1994 Adrianne McNicholas
1993 Sheher Imam Chowdhury University of Dhaka (Bangladesh)
1992 No information
1991 James Rocchi
1990 No information
1989 No information
1988 Michael Hall
1987 Not held
1986 No information
1985 No information
1984 David Celermeyer
1983 No information
1982 Stuart Bugg
1981 No information
McGill University (Canada)
University of Sydney (Australia)
University of Toronto (Canada)
Seattle University (United States)
University of the West Indies - Cave Hill (Barbados)
University of British Columbia (Canada)
University of Alberta (Canada)
Hebrew University (Israel)
McGill University (Canada)
Middle Temple (England)
University College Cork (Ireland)
University College Dublin (Ireland)
University College Dublin (Ireland)
University of Cambridge (England)
York University (Canada)
McGill University (Canada)
University of Western Ontario (Canada)
University of Oxford (England)
University of Sydney (Australia)
University of Auckland (New Zealand)

Stand-Up Comedy competition winners

Year Winner University

2010 Josh Taylor Griffith University (Australia)
2009 Willard Foxton Middle Temple (England)
2008 Patrick Bateman University of Sydney (Australia)
2007 Willard Foxton Middle Temple (England)
2006 Jess Moir University of Melbourne (Australia)
Australian National University Team
2005 (Bill Bannear, Emily Byrne, Jeremy Farrell, Australian National University (Australia)
Toby Halligan & Pat Moody)
2004 Mathew Kenneally Australian National University (Australia)
2003 Sam Negus University of Bristol (England)
2002 Alan Merson New York University (United States)
2001 Ryan Knowles University of La Verne (United States)
2000 Alan Merson & Ian Rutherford University of Glasgow (Scotland)
1999 Colm Jordan Dublin Institute of Technology (Ireland)
1998 Nick Bibby University of St Andrews (Scotland)
1997 Richard Douglas Australian National University (Australia)
1996 Andrew Gregson University of Tasmania (Australia)
1995 Bob Dalrymple University of Edinburgh (Scotland