Team standings after Round 4 - and some gratitude

Photos; CA Chris Erskine on the adjudicators' briefing day; Adjudicators Christopher Sanchez (Germany), Elisa Frank (Canada), Aaron Maniam (Singapore), Branislav Fecko (from the mighty Slovakian team of 9 judges)

Kia ora tatou.

At the half way stage, we are having two days off, one to acknowledge Friday and enjoy an evening desert safari under the stars and the next to go on various tours, including visiting the Islamic museum, watching camel races or floating on a dhow.

I have to say that for such an intense competition like WSDC, two days on, two days off, two days on before we hit the break rounds seems very sensible. It allows more time for us all to socialise, unwind and get to see a bit of Qatar rather than be cloistered in prep rooms 24/7. So I give many thanks to the organisers here in Qatar for their perspicacity!

The Chief Adjudicators Chris Erskine and Simon Quinn, together with their CAP (Chief Adjudication Panel) Taimur Bandey, Pardip Chopra, Effie Giannakouri, Beth James and Eva Spoor, are doing an outstanding job, dealing not only with a competition which has leapt from 39 teams to 57, but adjudicators who can't add up mark sheets! They are utlising a new tabbing programme which is working well courtesy of Simon Quinn (both for its invention and its maintenance.) A huge amount of appreciation goes to them for their many hours of hard work for the rest of us.

They have released an official tab including tournament rankings half way through the competition. Here it is. As you can see by looking at it, a number of teams are on the same win-loss ratio, which for 7 teams means no losses at all (so far.) Rankings are in those cases determined first by the number of judges who have awarded the debate to the team and then the team's speaker points.

I hope you're enjoying your weekend. I'm certainly enjoying mine.