Big win for young Lankan debaters
Front row, left to right- Janul de Silva, Reiha Wimalasekere, Jasmine Markandu, Shalem Sumanthiran. Back row, left to right- Rahul de Silva, Chanidu Ratnayake, Kithmina Hewage (Head Coach), Sanjit Dias (Technical Coach) Pic by Sameera Weerasekera
With the World Schools Debating Championship to be held in Mexico City being cancelled due to COVID-19, our debaters take up an online challenge and emerge victorious at a prestigious international tournament
It was a couple of blessings disguised as serious ‘coronavirus casualties’ that swept a team of fresh faced young debaters to heights undreamt of by any Sri Lankan before. The story of our Sri Lankan team who won the Tilbury House Debating Championship of 2020 sounds wonderfully, uncannily serendipitous.
Seated in the cosy Café Kumbuk, the six debaters are still weary from their gruelling three-day schedule from June 5 to 7- though jubilant- and visibly radiant like the drinks they sip. Theirs is the first win at an international debating competition by Sri Lanka.
It all began inauspiciously enough. Kithmina Hewage and Sanjit Dias from the Debaters’ Council of Sri Lanka had handpicked a team of six- debaters aged 15 to 19- for the World Schools Debating Championship to be held in Mexico City. With the sudden advent of COVID-19, the tournament was cancelled.
As another fatality of the pandemic, the annual Tilbury House Debating Championship had decided to hold their own tournament online- and the chance was eagerly taken by the debaters.
Best Speaker Shalem Sumanthiran
Organized by the historic University of Cologne, Germany (an ivied institution that was chartered by the Pope in the late 14th Century), this was a tournament that this year included 40 teams- including 15 national teams.
The win is made all the more glittering by the fact that Shalem Sumanthiran (19) of Team A was adjudged the Best Speaker in the tournament and Janul de Silva (17) of Team B was placed eighth.
The six debaters were broken into the two teams- and for them the online tournament hosted on Zoom was a novel, if hectic, experience.
The topics explored ranged from ‘replacing the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty with a clear regulatory framework that allows all states to possess nuclear weapons’, to ‘feminist movements in deeply religious societies should integrate religious messages and institutions into their advocacy, rather than distancing themselves from them’.
Curiously, in the semi-finals Team A had to lock wits with Team B. It was by thwarting their compatriots that A made its way to the finals and reached for the laurels.
Shalem Sumanthiran of Royal College found the online debating more tiring than normal, though it was rewarding. “We lost the first debate- so we had to win every single debate afterwards which added a lot of pressure.”
Shalem is the most seasoned of the team- with six previous international tournaments.
His teammate Chanidu Ratnayake (15) from Ananda College adds that it was “as fun as a regular tournament” while fellow A team member Jasmine Markandu, 17, from Colombo International School, recalls working to standard European time which meant having debates till 1 a.m.- “which is really hectic and extremely tiring… We didn’t really think we’d get that far but we did push each other and worked hard- we had practices each day so that made a difference.”
Team B, themselves not far behind, positioned third in the competition, was made up of Janul de Silva (16) from Royal College, Rahul de Silva (16) from Colombo International School and Reiha Wimalasekere, (16) from Ladies’ College.
The Head Coach was Kithmina while Sanjit Dias was technical coach. Says Sanjit of holding the competition online:
“It was technologically extremely well-coordinated- so that it could happen on one platform and so each of the debaters would be in their own homes but would log in on Zoom.
“On the whole this tournament demonstrated that a large scale tournament can happen online virtually which I think would increase the opportunity for a lot of other countries.”
“All three members of each group .are put into the same Zoom Room and given the topic one hour before the debate. They cannot consult internet resources or consult us.”
At the finals, Team A was pitted against Wales- while at the quarter-finals they had debated against Ireland. Among teams they had to debate with in the preliminary rounds were Romania, Germany, and the Czech Republic.