Yael Bell and Dan Lahav have won the first BBU Open that took place from the 11th to the 13th July 2014 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The team from Tel Aviv won from Closing Opposition in a debate with the motion: You are a scientist. You have discovered absolute conclusive proof that God does not exist. This house would destroy the information.

Yael Bell and Dan Lahav
(c) BBU DS

In Opening Government, Belgrade with Helena Ivanov and Stefan Siridžansky competed against Lund with Michael Saliba and Peer Klüßendorf in Opening Opposition and a Mixed team with Georgiana Mihut and AJ Carver in Closing Government.

The tournament featured five preliminary rounds, semi-finals and a final. Top speakers after five rounds were Dan Lahav from Tel Aviv and Helena Ivanov from Belgrade. Top of the tab was the team from Belgrade with 14 out of 15 possible points. The Germans Peer Klüßendorf and Michael Saliba who competed for Lund made it to the final and came 5th on the team tab after preliminary rounds. Peer was 5th on the speaker tab, Michael ranked 7th. The second VDCH-team breaking (4th) was Vienna A with Melanie Sindelar and Stefan Zweiker.

Michael Saliba (l.) and Peer Klüßendorf in the BBU Final
(c) BBU DS

The full tab can be accessed online.

Chief adjudicators (CAs) of the tournament were Karin Merckens, Amanda Moorghen, Michael Shapira, Harish Natarajan, Milan Vignjevic and Calin Muresanu. Stefan Strilciuc was responsible for runnning the tab.

The motions of the BBU Open 2014:

R1: This house would ban schools from catering to a specific religion (such as Catholic schools, Hebrew schools or Muslim schools)
R2: This house believes that Brazilian footballers should have boycotted the entire 2014 World Cup.
R3: THW allow inmates to pay for substantially better prison conditions.
R4: THW revoke the citizenship of Western citizens who travel to the Middle East to join Jihadi groups.
R5: THBT western European states should adopt the eastern European ban on all Communist symbols.
SF: Assuming the technology to do so safely and easily exist, THW force everyone to undergo periodical sex changes.
F: You are a scientist. You have discovered absolute conclusive proof that God does not exist. This house would destroy the information.

nbo/kem