When Cinderella came to the ball, she dazzled them all!

Debate Tournament Semifinals and Finals, held at Santiago College, Saturday 9 November

We’re fairly sure our 2024 champions, Colegio Internacional SEK Pacífico (you can also spot our 2024 Public Speaking winner, Cristóbal Clavijo in the picture above, second from the left), will hate the comparison, cheeky bunch that they are. But, try as we might to find another, this one keeps coming back, leaving us with no choice but to surrender to it. We’ll trust that the high they’re feeling right now will offset any annoyance at the allusion to fairy-tale princesses.

The SEK Pacífico team seemed to come out of nowhere. With no prior experience in the tournament, an unsuspecting naysayer advised them to keep their expectations low and not to leave the tournament early if they felt discouraged—“better to use this as a formative experience,” he said. But like Cinderella, an unknown princess from a far-off land (in their case, Con-Con) with no grand hope but to make the most of things and enjoy the party, this team ended up becoming the talk of the ball. They remained undefeated through eight successive dances, and finished with the Prince fitting a crystal shoe on their tiny, delicate feet. Okay, okay—no crystal shoes, but they did get some pretty nifty gold medals placed around their necks by a middle-aged bloke!

SEK Pacifico were not the only heart-warming news this year. This time around we had 12 teams in the tournament, something that hadn’t happened in many years, with more schools showing interest in participating than ever. Several other newcomers (CPV Las Condes, Deutsche Schule Santiago, Dunalastair Peñalolén) went into the fray against more seasoned teams, including our 2023 Champions, Santiago College. All schools who participated can be very proud of their students, as they showed passion, commitment, intelligence, courage, and a considerable amount of healthy teamwork.

Coming back to the semifinals, we entered them with our final four teams: SEK Pacifico, St. George’s College, Villa María Academy, and Nido de Águilas, all but SEK repeating last year’s semifinals. You can see the fixtures and results from our quarterfinals onwards in the picture below.

Some special prizes were given to graduating students who’ve participated in the tournament for several years, in recognition of their commitment to debating. Some have been in their teams for over 5 years! These were: Aurora Montes, from Villa María Academy; Borja Silva, Colomba Torres and Martin Ayres, from Santiago College; and Domingo Huerta, Isadora Hernández, Sofía Gamboa and Trinidad Matta, from Saint George’s College.

Finally, a prize was given to Evi Lambert, from SEK Pacífico, in recognition as the Best Speaker in the tournament. He received the best average individual scores from the judges.

WE WOULD LIKE TO EXTEND OUR THANKS TO:

Our sponsor Bookland and their affiliates Hamilton Publishing House who donated prizes for our graduating Certified High School Debaters and to our Best Speaker of the Tournament. Thank you so much, we hope to keep having you with us!

To Ana María Tomassini, Ethel Melej and Alejandro Dagnino, members of the Debate Tournament Task Force, who ensure everything runs as smoothly as clockwork. And if it doesn’t, they know just how to stop and restart the watch!

To Sally Thompson, her students (especially Celeste, who went the extra mile!), and her team, who hosted us on the day—even though they didn’t make it to the semi-finals this year. It takes a special kind of graciousness to do so. THANK YOU.

To Valentina Vergara from The Mayflower School, Carlos Torres from Deutsche Schule Santiago and Marcela Lafourcade from St. George’s College for helping us and hosting the dates throughout the tournament.

To our judges: without whom none of this could even approach the level of quality we have come to expect over the years. Calling all seniors 2024 to become judges next year!