*The Debatewise Blog
WODC: It gets rather cutting from here on in
This is it. No more second chances. The winners stay logged on the losers log out all the way to the final of the World Online Debating Championships.The Draw for the Second Round of the WODC took place on Sunday and it produced some interesting possibilities for example an Eastern European final possibly a revenge match between Lithuania and Latvia, a transatlantic scrap in the semi’s soon after the recent controversy over a certain… enough said about that! . The draw produced some interesting match ups too: Leading off on Wednesday the 26th of August will be the United States of America who got through the first round as a result of Bosnia forfeiting their first round match. They’ll be proposing a motion against South Africa who scraped through their match against Japan with one of the adjudicators saying that he’d give it as a neutral but couldn’t do that. However both Eusebius Mckaiser and Daniel De Kadt are “delighted” to have got through and are “excited” about facing the USA. Also while England’s cricketers will be trying to get over the post Ashes euphoria after winning against Australia, England’s online debating team will be up against more Commonwealth opposition in the form of India fresh from winning against Bangladesh starting on the same day . Bangladesh qualify as one of the top losers and go up against South Korea who sat out the opening round after being the odd one out in the draw starting on Thursday. That happens with Bulgaria (who won a first round match forfeited by a "snoozing" Israeli team) typing off against Latvia in the other match of the day. Interestingly Bulgaria are in the proposition seat where as Latvia have been drawn as the opposition this time giving the opportunity for Bulgaria to prove a point so to speak as the proposition , as will other teams that were in inactive matches.
A match of teams that won by forfeits starts the second half of the draw on Friday with Pakistan (who arguably gave one of the best arguments by a side in the forfeited matches) going up against Estonia who fought a forfeited (but still interesting) debate by Nigeria. Next up it’s our winner in the battle of the two L’s Lithuania going up against Canada who won by forfeit against Macedonia despite Macedonia trying to clamber back. Lithuania won an interesting match over whether "Nazi and Communist symbols should be banned". Last but not least on Saturday Indonesia propose against Mexico ,while Scotland face an impressive Venezuela who won a tough fought and interesting match against Indonesia persuading the adjudicators (if not the audience) that they were the team that should get through with their arguments over whether Dictatorship was the best path to development" . Indonesia did enough to secure a second round spot and will like all of the other teams have a chance to improve on their first round performance. But for which teams will improve enough to get through to the Quarter Finals of this inaugural tournament? Stay observing to find out and stay voting to potentially decide the outcomes of these matches
SECOND ROUND LINE UP:
Starting on Wednesday the 26th:
(Proposing)USA v South Africa; (Opposing)
(P) England v India (O)
Thu 27th:
(P) Bulgaria v Latvia; (O)
(P) S Korea v Bangladesh (O)
Fri 28th:
(P)Pakistan v Estonia; (O)
(P)Lithuania v Canada (O)
Sat 29th:
(P) Indonesia v Mexico; (O)
(P)Scotland v Venezuela (O)
All debates type off at 12.00 UCT/GMT (that's 13.00 BST) each day starting on Wednesday.
Comments
Hi. I would love to follow all these matches but they are difficult to find. Could you provide the subjects or links to get them?
Mónica CdD from de Venezuelan team.