Debaters from IBA, DU set benchmark at Australasian Intervarsity Debating Championship

The Australasian Intervarsity Debating Championships, commonly known as Australs, is an annual international debate tournament, hosting universities from Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It is considered as one of the most competitive university debate championships in the world with the participation of top notch institutions, like Monash University, University of Sydney and many other well-known Asian universities.
The format of the tournament requires three speakers in a team and generally consists of eight preliminary rounds of debate. Teams with the majority of wins and high speaker points qualify into the knockouts. This time, the Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia hosted Australs and a total of 124 teams from Australasian region participated in the tournament. Three teams -- IBA DU-1, IBA DU-2 and IBA DU-3 -- and two adjudicators from IBA, University of Dhaka participated in the tournament.
The tournament began on July 14, 2013 with the preliminary rounds taking place for three days. Team IBA DU-1 faced challenges from Monash University, University of Malaya, University of Queensland, University of Melbourne, and after seven rounds, ended up with three wins. Another team from IBA also tied at three wins. Throughout the course of the preliminary rounds, IBA teams enjoyed wins against competitive international teams, while the two adjudicators from IBA chaired two of the preliminary rounds.
IBA DU-1 and IBA DU-2 secured positions on the list of top eight teams and qualified to the knockout segment for ESL criterion. It was an all-time record for Bangladesh; it was the highest number of teams that ever qualified at the knockouts, at Australs.
Another record that IBA had set on the occasion was that former IBA debater and international champion, Mohammad Abir Hasan Niloy qualified as a judge at the knockouts and went on to judge all the way to the ESL semi-finals.
At the end of the preliminary rounds, two of the IBA teams bagged four wins each. IBA DU-1 was ranked 7th while the second team came 8th. IBA DU-2 qualified into the ESL semi-finals of the championship.  Unfortunately, the progress throughout the tournament ended in the semi-finals; our team lost against the University of Hong Kong. International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) ultimately won the championship.
IBA boasts the inaugural OIC Intervarsity Debate Championship trophy. Bangladeshi universities boast the ESL World Championship, Asian tournament qualifications and a pool of top quality debaters.

 Sajeed Alam is a sophomore at the Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka.