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
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 Championships
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 McKirgan and John Nicolson of Glasgow Dialectic met and defeated the defending champions Auckland (Stuart Bugg and David Kidd). It had been reported in the past that the beaten finalist was a University of Toronto team of Jeff Nankivell and Francis Daniels. However Frank McKirgan contacted me directly to correct this. The best speaker at the tournament was Michael McFarlane from the Glasgow University Union (a different society from the winning Dialectic team). As with the beaten finalists John Geisnell, from an unknown university, was previously recorded as the best speaker but again Frank McKirgan has corrected this and confirmed it with John Nicolson. 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.
Here is a little colour piece written by Frank McKirgan
The competition took place in March and the rest day coincided with
St Patrick's Day. A number of the competitors went up to New York City the night
before and spent a very long night and day experiencing the 'St Patrick's Day
spirit' in the city. The final was between defending champions from Auckland
(Stuart Bugg and David Kidd) and Glasgow University Dialectic Society (John
Nicolson and Frank McKirgan). The final was held in Nassau Hall (the first home
of the US Congress) and the motion was 'This House would apologise for the
American Revolution' with Glasgow proposing.
All the previous rounds had been judged by a three judge panel. For
the final, there were three judges and the organisers decided to award 2 votes
to the result of the audience vote. After the debate the organisers announced
that the judges voted 2-1 in favour of Glasgow and the 500-odd audience vote was
exactly tied. The 2 audience votes were split evenly giving Glasgow the trophy
3-2. Just one person in the audience could have changed the result.
Michael McFarlane from Glasgow University Union won the prize for
best speaker.
After the event the both the Glasgow teams plus the team from
Edinburgh went on a tour which visited Harvard, Yale, McGill, Toronto, Ottowa
and Hamilton.
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.
1991 University of Toronto Hart House
Toronto's second 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 University (Chris Wayland and Mona Gupta), defeating Dalhousie University (Stephen Pitel and John Haffner) in the final. Stephen Pitel would go on to debate for and coach Cambridge and pioneer the case book approach which would come to dominate teams tactics at Worlds. James Rocchi, from the University of Western Ontario Debating Society, was named World Public Speaking Champion.
1992 Trinity College Dublin
Around 150 teams competed at Trinity College Dublin. The final was competed by 3 Australian teams –- Australian National University (who broke 1st), Sydney A (who broke 2nd) and Sydney B (who broke 11th). The fourth team was Glasgow (Robin Marshall and Gordon Peterson), who 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) (who would later win Princeton World's) and 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) 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. Rt. Hon. David Lange was the Head International Adjudicator, Ex Prime Minister of New Zealand, and of 1985 Oxford Union Debate famed moot on legality of Nuclear Arms.
1993 Oxford Union Society
Oxford Union Society's convenor was Matthew Christmas (an apt name considering the time of year). The Chief Adjudicator was Michael Gove. The organising committee spanned two pages of its booklet, a sign of 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 and David Kennedy), is not remembered. Daniel Mulino (ANU) was best speaker. Former British Prime Minister Edward Heath addressed the championship dinner. 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). Princeton also offered a bid to Worlds Council but Melbourne were more prepared, probably because they knew earlier of Sydney's misfortune. Princeton were encouraged to bid for the 1995 championships instead.
1994 University of Melbourne
The University of 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 and Duncan Hamilton) who won the competition. Ben Richards (Monash) was the top speaker. The growth of the international aspect of the championships was seen in Melbourne with teams from France, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea and Zimbabwe.
1995 Princeton University
Princeton hosted once again in 1995. The overall winners, in a 6-5 decision, were the University of New South Wales (James Hooke and Jeremy Philips), who defeated Oxford (Rufus Black and Rod Clayton) in the final, and Harvard (David Panton and Ted Cruz) in the semifinal. Chitra Jenardhanan from Nanyang in Singapore became the first English as a Second Language speaker to win the Best Speaker award. At the 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 standardization of format to British Parliamentary after a heated discussion between Australia, New Zealand, Scotland and Singapore in favour of standardization, and the 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 teams per debate set-up required twice as many judges as normal. In the preliminary rounds, many rooms had only one judge. 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.
1996 University College Cork
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 RTÉ. There were a number of problems at this championships which combined to give a bad perception of the organizing committee and 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 found and circulated in the US and, in the absence of any other, 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. The championships were also note worthy for two decisions by Worlds Council. Firstly the creation of the Deputy Chief Adjudicator positions to make sure that the interests of debaters outside the host nation were represented on the organizing committee. Secondly this council voted on the Australian motion from the previous year to standardize 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 standardization or favoured another style. The motion was passed and for better or worse, and this paved the way to the creation of Worlds rules as they are today.
1997 Stellenbosch University
The championships were hosted at Stellenbosch University, the first time in Africa. In fact this was the first time a host nation came from outside the original seven Charter nations. After the problems with the previous two Charter nation Worlds (Princeton and Cork), this gamble by the Worlds Council was rewarded as Stellenbosch '97 is widely regarded as the benchmark Worlds setting new standards against which all future years 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 apartheid, and an outbreak of Ebola in Africa which had the world's media in overdrive. The competition ran smoothly and the social events in the 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 organizing committee, with 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 the National University of Singapore emerged 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 from Gray's Inn was best speaker.
1998 Deree College
Deree College was the first mainland European host, billing the event as "Debating coming home". It was also the biggest WUDC till then and the first time it took place in a non- English speaking country. Gray's Inn A (Neil Sheldon and Andy George) won the competition, defeating Western Ontario A (Brent Patterson and David Orr), Oxford] (Dom Hughes and ben Phillips) and Edinburgh University (Colm O'Cinneide and Ben Foss) in the final. Neill Sheldon also took the top speaker award. The top-breaking team after nine rounds was from Ottawa Law A (Casey Halladay and Cory MacDonald). The championships were also saw a change in voting rights on the Council which, loosened the grip of the charter nations and rewarded countries who sent more 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 led to frustration among some judges seeing a steady stream of weak teams (and frustrated some 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 concept 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 set in Stellenbosch (for which Athens were criticized), it was the first time teams had a clear picture of how they were performing at the end of each day. Additionally, the tournament featured social events for every night that, along with the Athenian festive atmosphere and the easy going Greek character, made the Athens Worlds quite a memorable event.
1999 Ateneo de Manila University
1999 continued the trend of first-time host continents with the first Asian host, Ateneo de Manila University. 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 occurred with registration and the tab system, which were fixed by the adjudication team. After that, the championships are generally considered to have been a success. This was the first Asian championships and saw a large number of non-Charter nations break. The Philippines had three teams break (two to quarter-finals and one to the semi-finals), South Africa had two (Witwatersrand University reached the semi-finals), while Singapore and Pakistan (Qtr-finals) had one breaking 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 the launch of a 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.
2000 University of Sydney
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 planes 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 beautiful natural harbour left participants wondering how the host committee could match this standard for the full week. They did. 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. Monash beat University College Dublin Literary and Historical (L&H) Society (Simon Mills and Paul Brady), Glasgow University (John-Paul Toner and Eleanor Winton) and University of La Verne (JJ Rodriguez and Sean Krispinsky) in the final. This was the first time that an all-female team had won. Andy Kidd (Oxford) also became the first speaker on record to top the speaker tab two years in a row.
2001 Glasgow University Union
The championships returned to Glasgow for its 21st birthday. After 4 years of warm (or at least very mild) climates, the participants were greeted with the heaviest snow-fall in Glasgow's living memory. Round 9 had to be cancelled after large numbers of teams were struck down with some form of illness known by the pleasant name of the "Winter Vomiting Virus". However as the round one motion was announced at the wrong time in the adjudication briefing and another had to be used, the participants still got 9 preliminary round motions, if not 9 debates. In addition, the tab system, based on that used at Sydney, continued to cause problems for tournament organisers, resulting in delays, and one team being accidentally excluded from the break (Cambridge). Despite all this, Sydney (Greg O'Mahoney and Paul Hunyor) came through to win and Paul Hunyor also took home the best speaker award. A prize of a large "Braveheart" style claymore sword for the winning team must have made for an interesting conversation at customs.
2002 University of Toronto Hart House
Toronto yet again succeeded Glasgow as host 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 itself during the championships. 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 (although it might be noted that both speakers were graduate students from the UK, having previously studied at Cambridge and Glasgow respectively). They defeated Durham B (Jon Simons and Tom Hamilton), Monash A (Amanda Wolthuizen and Michael Smith) and UCD L&H A (Paul Brady and Colin Walsh) in the final. Ewan Smith (Oxford) was the top-ranked speaker. The motions at these championships were considered controversial by many debaters as they covered topics such as September 11th, rape, and anorexia. Worlds Council saw a record three nations bidding to host in 2004 - Croatia, Malaysia and Singapore. The selection process was marred by controversy over the voting allegiances and pacts, but eventually Singapore won the right to host Worlds.
2003 Stellenbosch University
Some would say that this second Stellenbosch championship did not run as smoothly as the first. During the competition it became obvious that problems existed with the tab system, which had been tested with pre-prepared data but did not 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. However after all that the break was announced on time on New Year's night. The rest of the competition ran smoothly, and throughout the championship the social events were generally considered to be outstanding, helping to keep many participants happy and win back some of those who had been annoyed with earlier aspects of the competition. Also helping to make up for all the earlier problems, Cambridge B (Jack Anderson & Caleb Ward) won perhaps the tightest and best final in Worlds History. They won on a split 5-2 decision just ahead of Melbourne A (Perry Herzfeld & Sarah Kennedy). Monash B (Tim Sonnreich & Luke Oliver) and Cambridge A (Sebastian Isaac and Wu-Meng Tan, the latter also the top ranked speaker of the tournament) were also in the final.
2004 Nanyang Technological University
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.
2005 Multimedia University
The championships were hosted by the Multimedia University just days after the tsunamis which devastated Southeast Asia. Even though they had just a year to organize the competition, the championships were generally seen as a success allowing for the short preparation time. This was a good championships for Canada as the University of Ottawa A, represented by (Erik Eastaugh & Jamie Furniss) won by defeating Cambridge A (Daragh Grant & Joe Devanney), Oxford D (Alex Just & Jonathan Bailey) and Hart House B (Michael Kotrly & Joanna Nairn) in the final. The team of Alex Just (a first-year university student) and Jonathan Bailey (a second year) was the youngest ever in the Worlds Final. Kylie Lane (Monash University) took out the best speaker award. Khor Swee Kheng and Tan Ai Huey from the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia won the ESL Championships. 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.
2006 University College Dublin
The championships were won by Michael Kotrly and Joanna Nairn representing Hart House, University of Toronto, defeating the University of Chicago (represented by Daragh Grant and Patrick Emerson), Yale University (David Denton and Josh Bone), and the Inner Temple, (Greg Ó Ceallaigh and Charlie Sparling) in the Grand Final. This was "UofT"'s first win since the first Worlds in 1981 and the second successive Canadian win. Beth O'Connor and Rory Gillis of Yale shared the best speaker award, capping the best North American performance at the championships in over a decade. 323 teams were listed on the team results (together with a "swing" team which evened it to a required multiple of four), making Dublin 2006 the largest Worlds ever. Lars Duursma and Sharon Kroes from Erasmus University won the ESL competition with Anat Gelber from Haifa University winning ESL best speaker. This was also the first year that a team from France competed in the tournament. O'Neill Simpson from the University of the West Indies - Cave Hill (Barbados) won the Public Speaking tournament. Colm Flynn from University of Limerick was awarded the newly created Order of Distinction by the World Universities Debating Council. While the championships were seen to have raised the bar again for future hosts in terms of the level of professionalism in their organisation, there were a number of concerns over delegates' health as cases of suspected meningitis and confirmed flu were reported after the break was announced. Assumption University of Thailand bid to host the championship in 2008 and stood unopposed.
2007 University of British Columbia
The championships were won by Julia Bowes and Anna Garsia of the University of Sydney Union, only the second all-female champion team. They defeated Cambridge C (Ranald Clouston and Bob Nimmo), Oxford D (James Dray and Will Jones), and the University of Queensland A (Evan Goldman and Erin O'Brien). Jessica Prince from Oxford E was the best speaker on the tab. Suhaib Hassan and Tasneem Elias from International Islamic University Malaysia won the ESL competition with Suhaib Hassan from the same team winning best speaker The public speaking champion was Michael Imeson from Seattle University. University College Cork and the University of Botswana bid to host the 2009 tournament, with Cork being chosen.
2008 Assumption University
Oxford A (Samir Deger-Sen and Lewis Iwu) won the championships, defeating Cambridge B (Mhairi Murdoch and Daniel Warents), Monash A (Tim Jeffrie and Fiona Prowse) and Sydney A (Christopher Croke and Dominic Thurbon) in the final. Oxford A set a new record during the preliminary rounds of the tournament by collecting 25 of a possible 27 points. Sam Block of Cambridge A was the best speaker on the tab. The University of Amsterdam B (Reinier de Adelhart Toorop and Anne Valkering) won the English-as-a-Second-Language competition, and Keio University A (Yui Miyaich and Yoko Sako) won the English-as-a-Foreign-Language competition. Jason Joseph Rogers from the University of Toronto Hart House won the Public Speaking tournament. James Dray and Will Jones of the Oxford Union Society won the Masters competition (which they entered as Team Guinea-Bissau). Of note was a controversial motion during the preliminary rounds of the tournament which advocated the assassination of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin. Koc University won the right to host the 2010 tournament, defeating the University of Botswana and Nanyang Technological University. Ian Lising stood down as Chair of the World Council after many years of service. Neill Harvey-Smith took his place in the Chair, and presented Lising with an award to mark his investiture in the World Council Order of Distinction. Omar Salahuddin and Ray D'Cruz were also awarded this honour.
2009 University College Cork
The 2009 World Universities Debating Championship was jointly hosted by the UCC Law and Philosophical Societies. The Oxford University A team of James Dray and Will Jones won the championships. In doing so, they became the first partnership to simultaneously hold the World and European Universities debating titles, while Oxford became only the second institution to win back-to-back world championships (after Monash in 1999-2000). Dray and Jones have previously won the Masters title at the championships in 2008 and been Grand Finalists in 2007. The other finalists were Harvard A (Lewis Bollard and Cormac Early), Monash B (Ravi Dutta and Victor Finkel), and Oxford C (Jonathan Leader Maynard and Alex Worsnip). Babeş-Bolyai University won the English-as-a-Second-Language competition, and Vilnius University won the English-as-a-Foreign-Language competition. Naomi Oreb of Sydney topped the overall speaker tab, Leela Koenig of Leiden University topped the ESL tab, and Aiste Dumbryte from Vilnius topped the EFL tab. Patrick Bateman of Sydney claimed the Public Speaking title. In the Masters competition, Ross McGuire and Gregg O'Neill from Ireland claimed the team title while Irishman Barry Glynn took the individual title. Willard Foxton of Middle Temple won the stand-up comedy competition for the second time, becoming the first person to do so. The University of Botswana were named as hosts for the 2011 championships after two unsuccessful bids to win the right to host in the previous two years.
2010 Koç University
The tournament was hosted by Koç University, however the event was not held at the university's campus in Istanbul, but instead at the Maritim Pine Beach Club hotel and convention center in Antalya. The final marked the first time that the top four teams from the prelminary rounds all reached the final, with Sydney University (Chris Croke and Steve Hind) emerging as champions, defeating Harvard University (Adam Chilton and Cormac Early), the London School of Economics (Rushabh Ranavat and Art Ward), and Oxford University (Jonathan Leader Maynard and Shengwu Li). Tel Aviv University (Yoni Cohen-Idov and Uri Merhav) won the English-as-a-Second-Language competition, and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (Mikhail Sazonov and Maria Savostyanova) won the English-as-a-Foreign-Language competition. Shengwu Li from Oxford University was ranked the top individual speaker, with Manos Moschopoulos from the University of Athens being ranked the top ESL speaker, and Filip Dobranic from the University of Ljubljana topping the EFL speaker rankings. The public speaking competition was won by Riva Gold of McGill University, with Josh Taylor from Griffith University winning the stand-up comedy competition. The final of the World Masters debating competition proved to a particular source of controversy, with several of the speakers making jokes which some members of the audience found to be offensive, leading to a number of complaints. The tournament's equity committee upheld one official complaint, thus disqualifying one of the speakers and his team. At the conclusion of the tournament, due to a miscommunication between the adjudication team and the equity committee regarding which teams had been disqualified, it was mistakenly annouced that the Masters competition had been won by Canada, however it was later clarified that the Masters champions were in fact "Team Vanuatu" (Derek Lande and Jason Rogers). De La Salle University and Toronto University bid to host the 2012 tournament, with De La Salle being selected.
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