Posts Tagged ‘Lithuania’
IDEA Youth Forum 2010
Lithuania, Karl Popper Debating Championship 2010 Champions
The most worrying development however was the reported refusal by the Palestine Team to debate Team Israel.
The debate, where Uganda’s Ham Ahimbisibwe was to judge, aborted after the Palestinian captain, Nour Hamayel, told the audience that they (Palestinians) could not debate people who oppress” them back home.” “We cannot pretend that all is well. We are treated as lesser humans in West Bank and Gaza. It will look principally wrong for us to debate Israel, which oppresses us,” she told Daily Monitor. “We shall be sending the wrong message to the international community if we debate them; that all is well.”
Quite simply, debate is not the place to make a political statement. Indeed, it is the place where arguments and logical discussion should be held and heard. If a discussion cannot be held, then how will conflicts and problems ever be solved? Perhaps like WSDC, other tournaments should make it a rule and of basic courtesy to debate any assigned opponent.
WIDPSC 2010 – Results
Here are the final results for each category and overall. Hong Kong’s brilliant performance is clearly visible amongst all these numbers.
Overall
- 1st – Zenia Framrose – Canada – 745.33
- 2nd – Adam Litman – Canada – 740.25
- 3rd – Colleen McCutcheon – Canada -734.08
- 4th – Cameron Ewing – USA – 733.07
- 5th – Saad Sohail – Pakistan – 730.33
- 6th – Heather Pickerell – Hong Kong – 725.58
- 7th – Thomas Diment – UK – 724.47
- 8th – Easton Sheahan-Lee – Canada – 723.83
- 9th – Aidan Fishman – Canada – 723.12
- 10th – Lisha Jeena – South Africa – 722.83
- 16th – Sachin Srivastava – Hong Kong – 719.60
- 20th – Benjamin So – Hong Kong – 718.00
- 24th – Tiffany Chung – Hong Kong – 715.83
- 25th – Griffith Cheng – Hong Kong – 715.58
- 44th – Geoffrey Liew – Hong Kong – 695.93
Debating
- 1st – Jessica Hichens – South Africa
- 2nd – Cameron Ewing – USA
- 3rd – Adam Litman – Canada
- 4th – Aidan Fishman – Canada
Impromptu Speaking
- 1st – Thomas Diment – UK
- 2nd – Aidan Fishman – Canada
- 3rd – Adam Tohn – USA
Interpretative Reading
- 1st – Adam Litman – Canada
- 2nd – Jan Adrian Muller – South Africa
- 3rd – Zeenia Framroze – Canada
Persuasive Speaking
- 1st – Saad Sohail – Pakistan
- 2nd – Tamara Murat Khan Saleen – Pakistan
- 3rd – Adam Litman – Canada
After Dinner Speech
- 1st – George Alexander Charalambous – Cyprus
- 2nd – Cameron Ewing – USA
- 3rd – Marcus Ruddle – UK
English as Foreign Language
- 1st – Eglė Nefaitė – Lithuania – 697.75
- 2nd – Vykintas Glodenis – Lithuania – 696.88
Full results here.
Hong Kong
Results for Hong Kong following the 2 rounds of each category
WIDPSC 2010 – Team Hong Kong
The 2010 World Individuals Debating and Public Speaking Championships have finished. Held in Lithuania this year, it has been a resounding success, especially for Team Hong Kong. Of the 52 spots in the finals (essentially a semi-final), Hong Kong snagged a record 7 spots in total, the best in Hong Kong’s 3 years of attendance.
Prakash Sanker and Paul Lau each grabbed 2 final spots last year totaling 4. That record was broken with this years astounding 7 final spots.
Debating : Heather Pickerell
Impromptu Speaking : Heather Pickerell, Benjamin So, Sachin Srivastava
Persuasive Speaking : Tiffany Chung
Interpretative Reading : Sachin Srivastava, Griffith Cheng
With the conclusion of WIDPSC 2010, the overall results have also come in. Team Hong Kong of Heather Pickerell, Sachin Srivastava, Benjamin So, Tiffany Chung, Griffith Cheng and Geoffrey (Biffo) Liew broke new ground in a highly competitive field.
Although Hong Kong was unlucky not to have any grand finalists, the record for 2010 was still shockingly impressive.
Here are the overall rankings for Team Hong Kong 2010:
- 6th – Heather Pickerell
- 16th – Sachin Srivastava
- 20th – Benjamin So
- 24th – Tiffany Chung
- 25th – Griffith Cheng
- 44th – Geoffrey (Biffo) Liew
Congratulations to Team Hong Kong for a wonderful showing. Many of the team will remain in contention next year so the future looks bright for Hong Kong. As the founder of WIDPSC John Robinson said himself “Hong Kong is on the Map!”
Congratulations to Team Hong Kong!
WIDPSC 2010 – Day 1 & 2
Since my last update, the Hong Kong Team attending the 2010 World Individuals Debating and Public Speaking Championship in Lithuania have already arrived and have completed 2 days of competition.
Word is beginning to flow in of their performances with some doing quite well. Given that it is an individual competition, results usually take longer to tabulate as it takes more time. Not only is there news on the participants, the organizers have taken the courtesy to upload videos of the speeches at their Bitinazz Youtube Channel. I’ve included relevant videos that include Hong Kong participants. It should be noted that the videos often don’t contain the full speech, but rather just the start. Still, that gives us enough assurance that Hong Kong will have done well.
The flight to Lithuania appears to have been quite difficult with Tiffany describing it as such :
The flight was horrible. Literally, it felt like a million years just to get to Beijing. I was SO SO tired. But I couldnt sleep. Some idiot in front of us kept turning and glaring. -_-
Apparently there were problems with linking flights and such. We do know however that they landed safely in Lithuania. Here is how Ben So summed up Lithuania on two separate occasions :
I will skip the long and exhausting air trip – doubtlessly it is an experience that many of you will have had, that dull feeling of boredom while you sit aimlessly on a cramped economy class seat. But what is truly worth mentioning is the country of Lithuania. Not having ever travelled to Eastern Europe it was truly eye-opening to see for myself what a former Soviet republic looked like. And to be completely honest, Lithuania fits that description like a glove. Large warehouses made of steel and reinforced concrete, abandoned wooden shacks slowly crumbling, and a dismal, grey atmosphere to go with it. In the chilly air there hung, intangible but discernible, the feeling of a country that has suffered trauma and upheaval for far too long, and is trying its utmost to recover from the low nadir it had survived. The statistics back it up. Morbid as it might seem, and insensitive to our Lithuanian friends, but the country has the second highest suicide rate in the world – a shame, when you consider that each and every one of them that I have met had been extremely hospitable and genially nice.
During the opening ceremony, Heather “did a very impressive impromptu” according to people attending, as to why ‘the Panda is the official mascot for the tournament’
Most importantly of course is the competition of which there are 4 sections.
WIDPSC 2010 – Lithuania
On the 7th of April 2010, 6 students from Hong Kong will set off with coach Mr. Allen to attend the 2010 World Individuals Debating and Public Speaking Championships in Lithuania.
It will be the third time Team Hong Kong is represented at WIDPSC following great success in 2008 at Stuttgart and in 2009 in Reading. Contrary to WSDC, WIDPSC is fought on an individual basis over 4 categories (Debating, Impromptu Speaking, Persuasive Speech/After Dinner Speech and Interpreative Reading) You can find more information about WIDPSC at its unofficial information portal.
As a sign of the competitiveness of the Hong Kong Public Speaking scene, the continuous development and wealth of talent in Hong Kong, all six Hong Kong representatives will be attending their first WIDPSC tournament. The 6 representatives for Hong Kong will be :
The art piece representing Hong Kong that won the WIDPSC 2010 art competition
Team Hong Kong
- Yu Fai Benjamin So (Queens College)
- Ho Fung Griffith Cheng (La Salle College)
- Heather Pickerell (German Swiss International School)
- Sachin Srivastava (German Swiss International School)
- Tiffany Chung (South Island School)
- Geoffrey ‘Biffo’ Liew (Sha Tin College)
The team have been coached by Mr. Roy Allen who will join the team in Lithuania. Ms. Mary Garland was also crucial in the organization, coaching and management of the team although she will not be joining them in Lithuania.
You can read about the team’s last minute fears at their blogs below :
Given the many numbers that need to be crunched in order for results to be finalized, results are infrequently released as opposed to the WSDC who post daily updates. With over 100 competitors and at least 3 judges per individual, the hundreds of numbers take time to sort and results are usually only announced towards the end when those who have qualified for the final and released. A final list is given to each competitor only at the closing ceremony, containing the top 40 odd individuals for each category. As a result, news will be far and few in between with regards to results.
However, I will post results as they flow in to me form various sources. Tiffany in particular has said
“I’ll be documenting Lithuania for the next couple of days!”
so we shall be waiting for news.
