The winners of the Rotterdam Open 2018 – © Laurens van Doorn

The Rotterdam Open (24.-25.03.2018) ist over and the results are here: In the Open Final, the team Cheaper than Couple’s therapy (Marike Breed, Amsterdam & Roel Becker, Leiden) took the win as Closing Government on the motion “THW implement a system of ‘lease of life’ for all products of manufacture (such as: shoes, phones and machines).” The motion had an infotext (see below). They debated against Spatha A (Emma Lucas & David Metz, Leiden) in Opening Government, Stormy Daaniels plus one loyal customer (Floris Holstege, Leiden & Daan Welling, Leiden/Nijmegen alumnus) in Opening Opposition and DSDC Red (Urmi Palatsingh & Cato Brinkhof, Dutch Schools Foundation) in Closing Opposition. The open final was adjudicated by Eilidh McCreath as chair, along with Bethany Garry, Daniel Klein, Simone Eizagirre and Sonia Veltkamp.

The Pro-Am-Final was won by the team The Undebateables (Reeti Sarkar & Dhaval Shah, Delft) as Opening Opposition on the motion “THS the creation of private primary and secondary schools in developing nations.” They won against Send me your dijk pics! (Helena Hecke & Leonie da Col, Cologne) in Opening Government, Mixed Maastricht Arts (Frederic Augustin & Mishael Qadeer, Maastricht) in Closing Government and Niñas picantes (Lisa Knodt & Elisa de la Serna, Maastricht) in Closing Opposition. The PAF was adjudicated by Simone Eizagirre as chair, along with Bethany Garry, Fabienne Ellemeet, Fenna ten Haaf and Migle Povilenaite.

The Novice Final was won by the team GDS Kalliope Mosterdsoep (Jeffrey Schulman & Anna Ksiazczaková, Groningen). They won as Opening Opposition on the motion “THR the narrative that an artist must suffer in order to create great art.” Competing against them were the teams Florida (Florent Erbar & Ida Holschbach, Cologne) in Opening Government, Leiden MZ (Lucy McManus & Zita Zena, Leiden) in Closing Government and Wise words wizards (Quentin Hagen & Adriano La Gioia, Solvay) in Closing Opposition. Adjudicating the Novice Final were Huyen Nguyen as chair, Cindy Wilhelm, Nastia Grishkova, Niels Buijssen and Roel Schoenmakers. The team DSDC Marit & Twink (Marit van den Helder & Twink van Ling, Dutch Schools Foundation) originally was 4th in the novice break but had to leave early, allowing the Wise words wizards to  participate in the Novice Final instead.

Open team break:

The winners of the Rotterdam Open 2018 Pro-Am-Final – © Laurens van Doorn

Due to the team Ciudadanos leaving early, 9 teams made the break to the semifinals.

1. Stormy Daaniels plus one loyal customer (Floris Holstege, Leiden & Daan Welling, Leiden/Nijmegen alumnus) 13 team points | 807 speaker points

2. Cheaper than Couple’s therapy (Marike Breed, Amsterdam & Roel Becker, Leiden) 13 | 800

3. Spatha A (Emma Lucas & David Metz, Leiden) 12 | 801

4. Continuous Contradictions (Wieger Kop, Leiden alumnus & Simone Landman, Nijmegen) 12 | 790

5. Team Lennart en Pieter (Pieter van der Veere, Utrecht & Lennart van Laake, Leiden) 11 | 790

6. TU Delft Debating Club F (Sacheendra Talluri & Satya Krishna Ammu, Delft) 11 | 760

7. Ciudadanos (Theo Jessop & Cindy Yu, Uppsala) 11 | 758

8. DSDC Red (Urmi Palatsingh & Cato Brinkhof, Dutch Schools Foundation) 10 | 783

9. Tba (Katharina Jansen & Alwin Bakker, Maastricht) 10 | 782

Top 10 speakers:

The winners of the Rotterdam Open 2018 Novice Final – © Laurens van Doorn

1. Floris Holstege, 404 speaker points | 80,8 average

2. Emma Lucas & Daan Welling, 403 | 80,6

4. Marike Breed, 401 | 80,20

5. Roel Becker & Wieger Kop, 399 | 79,8

7. David Metz, 398 | 79,6

8. Lennart van Laake, 397 | 79,4

9. Pieter van der Veere, 393 | 78,6

10. Urmi Palatsingh, 392 | 78,4

Motions:

R1: TH, as a parent, would send their female children to an all-girls school.

R2: THR the media involvement in high profile criminal court cases (OJ Simpson, Trayvon Martin, Martin Shkreli, Oscar Pistorius etc.).

R3: TH, as a political party currently in power, would set policy via referendum.

R4: THW financially incentivise men to enter professions that are traditionally female dominated (eg pre-school teaching, nursing, nannying, etc)

R5: THW hold truth and reconciliation committees for the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent decades of Franco’s rule.

OSF: THBT LGBT+ rights organisations when campaigning, should emphasise conformity to, rather than their differences from dominant culture as a strategy for improving the social position of LGBT+ individuals.

NF: THR the narrative that an artist must suffer in order to create great art.

PAF: THS the creation of private primary and secondary schools in developing nations.

OF:Infotext: A ‘lease of life’ system assigns a pre-determined life-span to all products of manufacture when they’re first created. They can be sold and used within the time of their existence, but are declared legally ‘dead’ after that time expires. Legally dead items are subsequently destroyed and recycled by a government agency.

THW implement a system of ‘lease of life’ for all products of manufacture (such as: shoes, phones and machines).

lok.