Nanyang Technological University had defeated Malaysia and Croatia for the right to host. Before the competition, Singapore faced several difficulties. Their Chief Adjudicator, Amanda Kiemas, resigned to take up a new job offer. The replacement, Ravi Viswanathan, 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 up to and including the semi-finals in Stellenbosch and their bid was ratified by the Council in Toronto.
After that, concerns were raised in 2003 by 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 (Alexander Deane & Jeremy Brier) unanimously defeated Sydney (Alex Croft & Ani Satchithananda), Singapore Institute of Management (Rajesh Krishnan & Amit Bhatia) and Inner Temple (Richard Osbourne & Alexis Hearnden) in the final, held before a packed audience at the Victoria Concert Hall. Alex Croft was the best speaker.
Worlds Council, however, did not run so smoothly. The Council refused to ratify Zagreb as hosts for 2005. The bidding was reopened, and Malaysia's Multimedia University bid unopposed. After all that, University College Dublin won the right to host in 2006, again unopposed.
Winner:
Middle Temple (Alex Deane & Jeremy Brier)
Runners Up:
Sydney A (Alex Croft & Ani Satchithananda)
Singapore Institute of Management A (Rajesh Krishnan & Amit Bhatia)
Inner Temple (Richard Osborne & Alexis Hearnden)
Best Speaker
Alex Croft (Sydney A)
World Debating Masters Competition
Winner:
Australia (Tim Sonnreich & Amanda Wolthuizen)
Runners up:
England (Jack Anderson and Tom Hay)
Malaysia (Praba Ganesan and Suthen)
Canada (Ranjan and Rahool Agarwal)
English as a second Lanugage
Winner:
National University of Singapore B (Sarala Subramaniam & Wong Chen Seong)
Runners up:
National University of Malaysia A (UKM A) (Pravin Peraba and Khor Swee Kheng)
Ateneo De Manila E (John Fajardo and Bianca Rodriguez)
International Islamic University of Malaysia D (Raihan Ismail and Irma Nur Zaharah)
World Public Speaking Championships
Winner:
Irma Nurzahran Bt. Junian (International Islamic University
Runners up:
Greg Allen (University of British Columbia)
Sharon Ohayon (University of Alberta)
Comedy
Winner:
Mathew Kenneally (ANU)
Runners up:
Kevin Moar
Logan Balavijendran
