Winter Holidays Open, Zagreb
After a few months of online practices and spars, the National Team attended their first in-person tournament of the season in Croatia. All three Canadian teams broke, ending with a quarter-final finish from team Tommy Douglas (Barry Gu, Caylee Pan, Jinjou Wang, and Vanessa Zhang), semi-final finish for team Shania Twain (Isabelle Monsman, Michelle Liu, Miriam D’Amico, and Neil He), and team Terry Fox (Jin Zhou, Julian Zhang, Leo Zhu and Summit Kawakami) ended the tournament with a strong showing against Team China in the final.
Congratulations to Vanessa Zhang (1st), Barry Gu (5th), Leo Zhu (6th), and Neil He (7th) for their top ten finishes.
Zagreb was a beautiful city to explore, especially during advent. The city centre was full of bows, tinsel and massive Christmas ornaments, vendors selling small paper bags of freshly roasted chestnuts, and holiday music.
By far the highlight of the trip was our stop in the Museum of Broken Relationships, a must visit for anyone in the city.
Success through Spring
At Western WSDC, Team Canada performed exceptionally well, and went on to win the tournament.
- Canada Blue (Caylee, Julian, and Neil) walked away as champions of the tournament
- Canada Red (Barry, Isabelle, Jinjou, Leo, and Michelle) and Canada White (Jin, Miriam, and Vanessa) both made quarter-finals.
- Congratulations to Leo (3rd), Barry (5th) and Michelle (5th) for their top 10 finishes.
The team’s success continued into the spring at Harvard WSDC where all three teams broke once again:
- Congratulations to Barry (2nd), Leo (6th), and Jinjou (7th) for their top 10 finishes.
- An octo-final finish for Jin, Miriam, and Vanessa
- A semi-final finish for Barry, Isabelle, Jinjou, and Leo after a close round with Caylee, Julian, and Neil who proceeded to an excellent final round on leadership and discourse in social justice movements
Canada announces the 5
With Harvards WSDC wrapping up the travelling season for this year, the team is getting ready to buckle down and prepare for the marathon of Pre-Worlds training and Worlds in July. Representing Team Canada at WSDC Serbia this year are:
- Barry Gu (AB)
- Isabelle Monsman (SK)
- Jinjou wang (AB)
- Leo Zhu (BC)
- Michelle Liu (BC)
Tryouts for 2024-2025 Underway
As the current team trains in anticipation of Worlds, preparations are underway to select students for next year’s team. With both provincial debate selections and alternate applicants finalized, tryouts are slotted for May 22-23 in B.C. The committee is looking forward to meeting new students from around the country, and wish them best of luck at tryouts this year. A big thank you to the DSABC for helping to secure space and assist in organising.
Team Canada Debate 