Senior National Public Speaking Championships 2023
This tournament is the crème de la crème of speakers from across the nation, as they gather together and compete to determine who will go on to participate in the International Independent Schools Public Speaking Competition, which will be taking place in South Africa this year!
Looking at the individual categories first, we are very happy to announce that Reyhan Habib placed third in the Impromptu Finals, that Katherine Cai placed third in the Interpretive Reading Section, and that Jaiden Ahuja placed third in the Debate Finals. Additionally, Katherine Cai won the Debate Finals section!
However, the most exciting results come from the Overall Finals. We are very pleased to announce that Jaiden Ahuja has placed third in the overall competition, while Katherine Cai has been declared the Champion, placing first among all her competitors!
Katherine Cai will also be joining Jaiden Ahuja and Zachary Weinberg who had previously qualified through the IISPSC path, to represent Team Canada at the International Independent Schools Public Speaking Competition later in the year!
Good luck to all of you and congratulations on your very impressive accomplishments!
Overall Finals
Champion Speaker (Advancing to World Qualifiers)
Katherine Cai
3rd Place Speaker – Jaiden Ahuja
Impromptu Finals
3rd Place – Reyhan Habib
Interpretive Reading
3rd Place – Katherine Cai
Debate Finals
1st Place – Katherine Cai
3rd Place – Jaiden Ahuja
Alberta Public Speaking Provincials 2023
Our first tournament in February was the Alberta Speech Provincials. Success at this tournament would guarantee speakers the opportunity to compete in Speech Nationals!
We are very happy to announce that Katherine Cai won the Persuasive Speaker Category and Reyhan Habib placed second in the Impromptu Speaker Category. These are very impressive results, and it means that they will be competing in Winnipeg later in the month! Well done to the both of you!
Persuasive Speaker Awards
Champion Team – Katherine Cai
Impromptu Speaker Awards
2nd Place Team – Reyhan Habib
Alberta Debate Regionals 2023
If you remember back in January, we had discussed the Regionals Tournaments which took place in British Columbia, and the ones taking place in Alberta follow a very similar structure. While there aren’t any cross-examination styled rounds in Alberta, we see a ferocious competition between all speakers in Alberta to qualify to Alberta Provincials.
The province is split into two regions, Calgary and Edmonton, and it is further subdivided into categories based on the age and experience of speakers. We will go through each category one by one!
Congratulations everyone for a very impressive Alberta Regionals Season! This has been a very competitive field and you have all succeeded! Take a deep breath and start revising your cases for Provincials! We wish you all the best of luck in Alberta Provincials!
Calgary Open Senior
The Open Senior category is the scariest of the bunch, with many competitive speakers taking part and aiming for glory! This field includes some current Team Canada members, which drastically increases the ante. With that in mind, we wish to extend our sincerest congratulations to the following speakers for their impressive performance:
4th Place Speaker – Stella Mizak
7th Place Speaker – Jinjou Wang
13th Place Speaker – Reyhan Habib
We are also incredibly proud to announce that the following students will be heading to Alberta Provincials:
2nd Place Team – Jinjou Wang
6th Place Team – Reyhan Habib
11th Place Team – Stella Mizak
Congratulations everyone, we cannot wait to see you bring your sizeable debate arsenals to Alberta Provincials!
Calgary Beginner Senior
The Beginner Senior Category, much like it was in the Junior, is made for all those students who are starting their debate careers and perhaps have not attended as many tournaments or been in debate for as long as students in the Open category. It is very impressive to be so new to debate and yet still have the bravery to compete. We are incredibly proud of the following speakers for their incredible performance:
7th Place Speaker – Mary Wei
15th Place Speaker – Tiffany Li
Mary and Tiffany were partnered together and managed to place fourth overall in the team competition, meaning that they will be advancing to Alberta Provincials! Congratulations to the two of you, we are very proud of you!
Calgary Open Junior
The Open Junior Category is reserved for students that are Grade 9 or younger, but have attained experience in the field previously! In a field of over fifty speakers, we are incredibly proud to announce the impressive speaking results of the following students:
5th Place Speaker – Jade Wang
10th Place Speaker – Jasmine Wang
Additionally we are very proud of Jade Wang and Jasmine Wang, who together placed 8th overall, meaning they have secured themselves tickets for Alberta Provincials! Well done to all of our students who participated in this tournament, we are incredibly proud of you!
Calgary Beginner Junior
The Beginner Junior Category is specifically made for all those young speakers who are just starting out in their careers. It was a competitive tournament and featured nearly fifty speakers! We are very proud of all of our students who achieved speaking glory, including the following students:
10th Place Speaker – Aryan Sharma
14th Place Speaker – Sarah Gong
Additionally, we are very proud to announce that Aryan Sharma has qualified for Alberta Provincials, with his team placing 5th in the overall competition! Well done!
We are incredibly proud of all of our students who competed in this category. It takes real bravery to take the plunge and compete in Regionals, especially so young! Well done!
Edmonton Open Senior
Much like the Calgary Open category, Edmonton Open is the major competitive category, with a multitude of highly accomplished speakers taking part in the competition! In a field of twelve teams, the rounds were incredibly high quality and we could not be prouder of the following speakers for their accomplishments:
Champion Speaker – Katherine Cai
2nd Place Speaker – George Xie
3rd Place Speaker – Michelle Han
10th Place Speaker – Emily Chen
The following students will also be headed to Alberta Provincials:
Champion Team – Katherine Cai & Michelle Han
2nd Place Team – George Xie
Stanford Invitational 2023
The Stanford Invitational took place around the middle of the month and was an online Worlds tournament – the three versus three format! This was an incredibly competitive tournament, featuring members of national teams and over 200 speakers! Despite the significant degree of difficulty – both in terms of motions presented and opposition faced, we are proud to announce that our students absolutely crushed it!
Starting with the teams’ records, congratulations to the following students for their excellent debating and making it to the following rounds:
Semi-Finalist
Jeanette Pan
Quarter-Finalists
Leo Zhu and Meredith Wang
Octo-Finalists
Eric Su and Kennedy Kopke
Octo-Finalists
Sophie Yang, Brooke Ji, Amy Zhang, Emily Cui
Our students however particularly excelled in the speaker category, and among the other accomplishments, we wanted to take the time to specially congratulate Leo Zhu for being the top speaker of the tournament! We also wish to congratulate the following speakers:
Champion Speaker – Leo Zhu
13th Place Speaker – Andy Yu
21st Place Speaker – Jinjou Wang
22nd Place Speaker – Jeanette Pan
30th Place Speaker – Kennedy Kopke
Well done everyone, we couldn’t be prouder of your accomplishments and your excellent performance at this tournament!
Western Winter HST 2023
The Western Winter High School Tournament took place on the last weekend of February and featured over 180 speakers, significantly increasing the competitiveness of the field. The tournament was held in the British Parliamentary style, meaning that instead of having just a proposition and an opposition to the motion, there were now four teams, each competing to win! This forced our students to be more strategic in their approach, and we are proud to announce that they have more than met the challenge!
This tournament is also particularly special for Leo Zhu as he completed an achievement that very few have earned – being the Champion Speaker and a member of the Champion Team at the same time! This is a huge accomplishment, and we couldn’t be prouder of Leo’s work!
Looking to team performances first, we are incredibly proud of the following students for reaching these stages of the tournament:
Champion Team
Leo Zhu
Quarter-Finalists
Vanessa Chen, Jason Song, Jerry Song, Ann Wang, and Jeanette Pan
Junior Semi-Finalist
Justin Huang
The speaker awards were also particularly impressive for FDT Students! First, the Junior Speakers, and in a field of over one-hundred speakers, we wish to congratulate the following students for their impressive accomplishments:
17th Place Speaker – Vanessa Chen
19th Place Speaker – Justin Huang
Everyone was eligible to place in the open speaker category, and we have some very impressive results we wish to share with you! Congratulations to the following students:
Champion Speaker – Leo Zhu
5th Place Speaker – Ann Wang
10th Place Speaker – Jeanette Pan
17th Place Speaker – Jerry Song
20th Place Speaker – Jason Song
Congratulations to everyone! This is another successful tournament under our belt!
