And Singapore are crowned the champions!

After a very close debate between Australia and Singapore on the motion THBT autocracy is doomed in the age of Facebook, Singapore were crowned the champions of WSDC 2011 on a 7-2 split. This is the first time Singapore has ever won the tournament, and emotions were running high for all concerned.

Following the final, we had an hour of free time before the closing ceremony, so with Ayellet, Miriam and Hodaya from Team Israel we headed off to Wetherspoons to enjoy some British culture. Then we met the rest of the WSDC community outside Caird Hall, where we were serenaded with bagpipes before the ceremony could begin.

There were several speeches and a meal, and then the prizes were announced. These went to the following:

Champions: Singapore 
Runners-up: Australia
Best ESL (English as a Second Language) Team: South Korea
Best EFL (English as a Foreign Language) Team: The Netherlands
Best New Nation: Barbados
Best Individual Speaker: Teoh Rin Jie, Singapore
Best ESL Speaker: Ye Eun Chun, Republic of Korea
Best EFL Speaker: Chan Keun Kim, Republic of Korea
Best Speaker from a New Nation: Stefan Stojanovic, Serbia

After the ceremony, Sarah and Paul headed back to the flat while David and I took on the Ceilidh, which was a combination of laughter, chaos and a little bit of dancing. Some of the steps were similar enough to folk dancing for me to pick up (David had been to the Ceilidh practice, and was therefore an expert - I'd gone to the whiskey tasting instead), but some were quite different.

We then went back to the Students' Union for a different type of dancing in the nightclub there, and at around 3am we said our final goodbyes to all the amazing people we had met over the course of the tournament, and returned to the flat.

I'm particularly sad that I won't be returning to WSDC as a debater - many of the people I've met will be eligible to return for WSDC in Cape Town, South Africa. But I've had an incredible three years - I've met some fantastic people and, whether or not it dooms autocracy, Facebook is certainly a marvelous invention for keeping us all in touch.