Bangladesh wins debate ‘World Cup’

Brac A, representing Bangladesh at the World University Debating Championship (WUDC) 2022, have won the open championship. The team comprising of Sourodip Paul and Sajid Asbat Khandaker are both current students of Brac University, who brought the title home from the tournament often regarded as the "World Cup of debating".

This year the event was held online. The final took place on Wednesday evening.

This is the first time a Bangladeshi team has made it to the finals and they are now the first Asian team to become the global champion in debating.

Team Bangladesh represented by Brac University won this championship against 373 teams from 267 institutions, which includes globally prestigious universities.

In the Open Finals, the competing teams were Brac University, Princeton University, Ateneo De Manilla University, and the National University of Singapore. BRAC University won with all 9 ballots in their favour.

In his speech in the Open Finals, Sajid remarked, "We are a small community trying really hard to do well in the global debating community, and I'm sure this is just the start of a wonderful journey for Bangladesh."

Sourodip added, "Debating has been a passion of ours for so long. We are glad to have been able to represent our country to the best of our capacities."

In the individual speaker category, Sajid was ranked as the 2nd best English as Secondary Language (ESL) speaker, while Sourodip came 6th in the same category.

Sajid also ranked as the 9th best overall speaker in the competition.