GIBS Debate Club in Vienna & Istanbul

While many students were enjoying their last days of holidays before coming back to school. GIBS Debate Club were busy preparing for the year ahead. 15 students from GIBS travelled to Vienna on the 4-5 of January to participate in a Debate workshop and ultimately try out for the National Debate Team & Squad which will represent Austria at international tournaments. It seems like only yesterday when GIBS was carrying the Austrian flag in Slovenia and Czechia at international debate tournaments but our student Debate community in Austria is growing. After hosting a high quality international debate tournament back in November GIBS students were motivated to improve and help form the national debate team & squad for Austria. In the end we are incredibly proud to see Sofia Schuppler (8i) chosen as team captain for the National Debate Team. Felix Fintl (7i) also made the Squad and will represent Austria at upcoming debate tournaments! A special mention goes to Ferdinand Droschl (7b) & Fey Teufelberger (5b) who just missed out on a spot on the squad and were strongly encouraged to try again next year! Special thanks to our prestigious independent adjudicators, Yarina Bell-Gam (Oxford) & Aniket Godbole (LSE) expert debaters and judges who travelled to Vienna to help us form the Squad. Not to mention Marina Kojić who organized everything!

Further to our goals of building a debate community in Austria. 3 students from GIBS joined a delegation to the Eurasian Debate Championship in Istanbul. With 60 other teams the 3 Austrian teams did extremely well. Nils was the captain for Austria Red and his team just missed out of qualification round on a tie breaker but still finished in the top 20. Out if the 250 or so debaters Sofia Schuppler was ranked 15th best speaker overall (and joint best Austrian speaker) and Felix Fintl was 4th best Austrian speaker (ranking 37th overall). Felix captained the Development Squad to the OctoFinals which is a great achievement not to mention Sofia Schuppler captaining the National Team to the Quarter Finals of this high quality tournament.

Best of luck to them as they continue to train for the European championships in March and World championships in the summer.

We will continue to promote and engage with Debate as an activity at GIBS so as to foster more critical thinking and awareness about world issues in these interesting times!