My team, John the GOAT, lost the finals of our school’s debating league today. We were the reigning champions; it was an extremely rare feat for a non-final year team to win the league. And today, on the 30th of April 2024, we had our chance to win it again, to become the first-ever team to win the league twice.
Spoiler: it didn’t happen. Truthfully, I am disappointed. How could I not be? We had the swagger. We had the superior argument. We had the audience laughing at each word. All in all, the loss isn’t all that bitter. We had a great time, we had fun all the way through and that’s what matters the most. To fully understand our journey, I need to take you two years back… It was the start of our first year of lycée (equivalent to high school in France, the last 3 years of secondary education). My friend I*** and I were interested in joining the debating league and teams had to minimum 3 members; I*** brought in R******, a guy we knew from collège (middle school), who in turn brought in his new best friend C******. We called ourselves The Debater Slayers, with all the confident innocence of freshmen. Debates took place on Monday evenings, and it was there that we met the most influential figures of our debating life: Bob Fisher. A team made up of 4 guys and 1 girl, all terminales (seniors). They were effortlessly charismatic, seemingly wrote their speeches 10 minute before the debate, and still managed to bulldoze every other team in the group. They blew us right off our feet. We said to ourselves: When we’re in Terminale, we’ve *got* to be like them! Unsurprisingly, they made it to the finals. They were up against a group of 4 girls in terminal as well, in matching outfits and looking absolutely insufferable. The girls won. We were shocked; in our hearts, Bob Fisher had deserved to win 100%. They were dejected, too. Summer came and went. With the previous year’s terminales having graduated, we were quickly rising as a new contender in the league, now reborn under the name of ‘John the GOAT’. I’m going to let you in on the inside joke: During the preparation for one of our debates the previous year on the topic of sportswashing, R******’s father, a sports journalist called John, popped up impromptu during one of our Discord calls and gave tons of insider knowledge that helped us win our debate. We just had to give him a shout-out. Anyway, John the GOAT made it to the finals and somehow, impossibly, miraculously, won. That was one of the best days of my life. The final match was especially daunting because it differed from the usual debate format we were used to, which I will explain right now.The rules and format of debating league
each debate has 2 teams of 3 debaters against each other. The debate is centred around a Motion, usually a statement. the team that is arguing in agreement with the statement is called the Proposition, the team arguing against is the Opposition. Teams take turn speaking, but proposition always goes first. So the order goes like this: 1st proposition speaker -> 1st opposition speaker -> 2nd prop -> 2nd opp -> 3rd prop -> 3rd opp. The teams are given the motion 1 week in advance, during which each debater writes their speech. Debaters have maximum 3 minutes to deliver their speech. The first and last 30 seconds are protected, meaning the other team is not allowed to interrupt, but during the middle 2 minutes they are allowed to raise their hand to signal they have a Point of Information (POI). If you accept their POI, they can basically interject one thing in response to your speech—for instance, mentioning a statistic that goes against the point you’re currently making. You then respond briefly to the POI and carry on your speech. The number of POIs is unlimited but you are free to refuse any of them. In general, the practice is to accept 1 POI in your speech to demonstrate how well you’re able to defend your argument, but usually not more because you would be losing precious time. The finals, however, are slightly different (and much harder). You see, the final takes place almost immediately after the semi-finals: on the day of the grand final, first there are the semi-finals. After each semi produces a winner, the motion for the final debate is revealed and both teams have 20 minutes to come up with their speeches on the spot. In this case, the motion won’t be on a specific issue like it usually is, but instead a proverb or a maxim, which requires far less research. But still, 20 minutes to prepare a whole speech is *hard*, believe me. Usually, the champions get their medals and pose for a picture with the Championship Cup. However, we got the honour to take the Cup home because we would be coming back the next year. Each of us kept it for a few months, before handing it back for this year’s final.