South Africa at Heart of Europe 2014:
In 2014, the South African Debating team which attended were able to win the tournament through a fantastic performance from a fairly new team. The overall results were:
- Team broke 3rd
- Amelia Warren ranked 4th
- Heart of Europe Debate Tournament Champions 2014
South Africa at Heart of Europe 2010:
The Heart of Europe Debating Tournament is an annual competition held in the city of Olomouc in the Czech Republic. It is attended by many different teams, ranging from school teams and regional teams to national teams. In 2010, South Africa attended the tournament for the first time, using it as a warm-up tournament for the African Schools Debating Championships. We sent a fairly ‘new’ team – only one of them had debated for South Africa before. The team was comprised of Binwe Adebayo, Neil du Toit, Lisha Jeena, Reantha Pillay and Emma Pottinger.
The team enjoyed a busy week of debating, sight-seeing and general merry-making. They debated exceptionally well, giving traditional powerhouses like Canada a run for their money. After four days of debating, South Africa faced Hong Kong in the finals – and won! Even more impressively, Neil du Toit was ranked as the top speaker at the tournament. On the adjudication side, Thomas van Heerden was considered one of the top judges at the tournament, and was chosen to judge the semi finals.