Last year, Canada won Worlds after a 13-year drought. This year, Canada did it again, this time by Michael Kotrly and Joanna Nairn from Hart House, University of Toronto who defeated teams from Yale University, University of Chicago, and The Inner Temple in the Grand Final round to capture the title. CUSID congratulates them with pride for their outstanding performance.
Six other teams also represented Canada admirably. Rory McKeown and Gaurav Toshniwal (Hart House), R. Jesse McWaters III and Jason Rogers (McGill University), Rahool Agarwal and Ren (Hart House) made it to the Quarter-Finals; Jess Prince and Gordon Shotwell (McGill), Ian Freeman and Melanie Tharamangalam (Hart House), and Garnett Genuis and Padraic Ryan (Carleton University) were Octo-Finalists.
In speaker rankings, the top speaker in the competition was a tie between Rory Gillis and Beth O’Connor, both from Yale University. The top Canadian speaker and 9th in the world was Jess Prince, while Joanna Nairn and Ren tied for 10th place.
Canada was also well represented in the Public Speaking competition with Michael Kotrly, Jason Rogers, and Ren reaching the final round. Gordon Shotwell and Brent Kettles (University of Calgary) were semi-finalists. Public Speaking was won by O’Neill Simpson from the University of West Indies, Cave Hill.
At the Worlds Council meeting, the 2008 World Championships hosting right was given to Assumption University in Thailand, whose bid included Joanna Nairn as one of the North American Deputy Chief Adjudicators. Also, University of British Columbia’s bid defence was ratified for Worlds 2007.
CUSID wishes the debaters a safe trip home and once again, congratulates all the Canadian debaters at Dublin for what is undoubtedly Canada’s most impressive showing ever. Next year will be even more exciting as the World Championships returns to Canadian soil in Vancouver.