Two Israeli students win gold medal at World Debate Championships
Baku, January 8, AZERTAC
Two Israeli female students won the gold at the 40th World Universities Debate Championships held in Thailand in recent days, beating some 750 participants from all over the world, according to TPS.
Hadar Goldberg, a mentor at the Israeli Liberal Debate Club and chair of the Open University Debate Club, and Maya Svalayev, a club debater, defeated English-speaking competitors who discussed a variety of issues in democracy, morality, gender, geopolitics and law.
This is the first time an Israeli team made up of two women won the competition. Goldberg and Svalayev won the competition after nine exhausting quarterfinals, semifinals and finals.
Along the way, they overcame teams from Korea, Germany, Malaysia, Spain, Serbia, Bangladesh, South Africa, Ghana as well as other groups from Israel.
Svalayev was also crowned as the outstanding spokeswoman for the finals.
The Israeli teams competed with representatives of the best universities in the world, with three Israeli pairs advancing to the final stages. Annie Schwartz and Danny Haran, and Asaf Hanani and Nadav Kornblum, all from Tel Aviv University, reached the semi-finals but were eventually defeated by Goldberg and Svalayev.
The final panel revolved around the question of whether US criminal cases involving African Americans, as victims or defendants, should be discussed by special committees from the African American community rather than the usual courts. The Israeli team argued against the proposal and won the judges’ unanimous decision.
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