Videos from Korea '07 available for purchase

Justin Reznick writes:

Greetings from Korea!

I met many of you when you came to Korea last July and am happy to share some long-awaited news about video footage from the last WSDC.

The sponsor of WSDC 2007, YBM/Sisa, has packaged and released a set of DVDs (along with transcripts of the debates) that are now available for sale. The product description is in Korean, but even if your browser cannot handle Korean text, you can still find pictures of the DVD package and two URLs for streaming video samples.

Note that you will not be able to order from the above site unless you are in Korea. You can view an online video sample.


If you are interested in buying the set--it's 15 DVDs, all the elimination rounds--I have been told that you should contact Mr. D. H.
Hong (dhhong@ybmsisa.com). He said that YBM can deliver the DVDs directly, even overseas, as long as they are able to confirm the orders by email beforehand.

Also, last fall, I uploaded all the WSDC 2007 videos that I had access to, but I did not make any public announcements because I was concerned that I might be violating an agreement with our sponsor. I'm no longer concerned about (my videos are low-res and include only one round that overlaps with the those on the released DVDs), and I hope other teams have videos that they can share as well. I recommend Google Video's Uploader applet for getting your digitized videos online. (And Alive Video Converter if you have big videos you need to compress to put online.)

If you want to see the debates I put online (all the ones with team Korea), try a video.google.com search for "WSDC Korea." I hope that any other people with video footage from the last WSDC will contact Claire Ryan so that any other videos that are out there can be announced and more freely circulated. Also, please contact me if you'd like any messages posted on the WSDC Seoul site's message board. That site will remain up and online for at least another year or two.

I hope to see you all again soon!

Justin Reznick
Korea Forensics League
+82-11-9294-8973

WSDC alumni win top prizes at WUDC

Lewis Iwu, who competed for England in Stuttgart '04 and Calgary '05, was part of the Oxford team which won this year's World Universities Debating Championships in Thailand (with partner Samir Deger-Sen, who was 2nd individually; the pair broke 1st with a record 25 points). Lewis is the first WSDC alum to win WUDC since Caleb Ward (NZ) and Jack Anderson (Scotland) in 2003. I think.

Sam Block (Cambridge), who was on both England teams with Lewis, was the top speaker. Lewis was joint 5th with Kitson Symes (Oxford, England '06). Chris Croke and Dominic Thurbon (Australia) also reached the final for Sydney. Congrats to all of you!

World Schools alums in action at WUDC

Do you know which of the speakers still competing in the WUDC in Thailand were formerly participants at WSDC? Here are a few we recognise - please leave a comment if you know of more, or any corrections:

Grand finalists

Lewis Iwu (Oxford A, broke 1st) - England
Chris Croke (Sydney A) - Australia
Dominic Thurbon (Sydney A) - Australia

Semi-finalist

Evan Goldman (Queensland E) - Australia

Octo-finalists

Lewis Turner (Oxford D) - Wales
Shengwu Li (Oxford E) - Singapore
Kathy Scott-Dowell (Victoria E) - New Zealand
James Moir (Oxford B) - Scotland
Alex Worsnip (Oxford B) - England
Neil Dewar (Oxford E) - Scotland
Chris Bishop (Victoria A) - New Zealand
Kitson Symes (Oxford D) - England
Sam Block (Cambridge A) - England

If we're missing you, it's because the results from WUDC often don't include speaker names - please leave a comment and we'll update this blog. Fingers crossed for everyone left standing!