Race for the Worlds

As on previous occasions, the registration period for the 2012 Manila Worlds opened and ended within a matter of minutes. Worlds slots are snapped up within a matter of seconds, really. For example, slots for Koc Worlds were all taken up within a record time of 90 seconds; for Botswana a few seconds shy of two minutes. If the system allowed for scalping, selling Worlds slots would bring scalpers one heck of a windfall.

This attests to how crazy and eager debate teams are to be at Worlds. Some say the competition really doesn't start at Round 1, but at registration.

Having had to deal with registration for 3 years now, I've had some opportunity to ponder aspects by which registration practices favour universities which have fast internet connections and weigh heavily against those unfortunate enough not to have access to such a facility.

There was a time when registering for the Worlds was not marked by the wild-eyed frenzy which has recently emerged. Participation would be by faxing or sending the registration form via courier, and confirmation deemed complete by faxing a copy of the fund transfer receipt or the wire transfer receipt. This was before the dawn of the internet of course. But seeing how crazy registration gets now, one cannot but feel a sense of longing for those days when it seemed so civil and congenial.

Today of course everyone seems to want to be at Worlds, particularly with the dawn of Colm Flynn's unofficial ranking of universities. I haven't personally studied the finer details of how these rankings come about, but it requires little imagination to understand why this appeals to debaters (who disputedly belong to a very competitive set of individuals). From what I can glean, every year your university fails to send a team to the Worlds, the lesser accumulated points you have, and the lesser the possibility your ranking goes up.

If this is the logic by which this unofficial ranking system works, then one can dare say, "ergo, the scramble for slots'.

But isn't this a red herring for the real essence of competition all debaters aspire for? You do not invest those endless hours of reading and practicing, enduring wrenching feedback from your coach and teammates only to end up in the bin of Round 9 of Worlds, with teams which barely can string an English sentence together and with adjudicators who look forward more to the New Year's Eve Party than the debate.

Surely, participation at Worlds should be by merit, like the World Cup. Like the World Cup, which is a gathering of the world's best 32 football teams, should Worlds not be shaped from the same mould?

Current registration practices however do little to encourage any form of merit-based registration. Instead it breeds an atmosphere of duplicate registrations, and rewards those with the fastest internet connection. It is inflexible to force majeure such as the dreadful triple disasters which recently visited Japan - what would happen if, touch wood, these natural disasters occurred in the United Kingdom or Australia and all those great debate institutions failed to register? Would there be a 'Worlds' without these powerhouses?

Some might rejoice at the possibility of not having strong teams around, but any coach worth her salt would rather have her team swept to third or even fourth in a chamber of high quality teams. Quantitatively, you might lose those precious points, but as a teaching tool, nothing accelerates learning and skill advancement more than a worthy opponent.

Hopefully, this will be resolved. But that is more of a pipe dream than a feasible reality.

And so see you again next year my friends from all over, at our annual pilgrimage, at the Race for the Worlds.

Click, click, submit!

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Anna Alfaro Manurung is a corporate lawyer, and a debate & public speaking coach. She tweets at @AnnaAlfaMan.

She has used (c) Pigtales for her blog entries since 2005.

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