Two U of T students came awfully close to being named the world’s best debaters two weeks ago. But even though they didn’t win the big prize, they share the not-quite-winners’ circle with members of prestigious institutions like Oxford and Cambridge.

During the last week of December, members of U of T’s Hart House Debating Society competed in the annual World University Debating Championships. Out of 312 teams from over 40 nations, teammates Joanna Nairn and Michael Koterly were one of the final four teams in the championship. Their remarkable run was a record-breaker: they-along with the eventual winners of the tournament, the University of Ottawa Law School-are the first Canadian teams to make it to the finals since 1996. U of T’s team lost only marginally to Ottawa in the final round of competition.

Along with Hart House and Ottawa, the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford were also competitors in the final round. Nairn, a third year political science major, and Koterly, a second year U of T law student, lost to Ottawa during the final debate, which was about the appropriateness of corporal punishment in schools. Although they put up a good fight in the final round, Nairn and Koterly were defeated by the Ottawa champions, Jamie Furniss and Erik Eastaugh. But they were gracious in their defeat.

“They’re law students,” said Nairn. “It was no surprise they won. Ottawa has been pretty dominant on the circuit for a long time.”

Eight team members were sent to the tournament from the Hart House Debating Society, a club which boasts 122 members and has been an integral part of U of T for decades.

Battling with words, as any debater can tell you, is not an easy feat. Competitors must be able to think critically about an issue and articulate a structured argument on a tight schedule.

Jenifer Newcombe, Hart House Programme Advisor for the debating society, described the time crunch that debaters face during a tournament.

“They were assigned only 15 minutes to prepare each debate,” said Newcombe. “Students have to be well-informed to act on the fly [in order to argue] such issues as whether or not HIV+ patients should disclose their illness to employers, or the use of anti-terrorism laws.”

“It’s remarkable how many similarities between political points of view there are in different countries,” said Nairn. She said that she was surprised several times, too, adding, “the American debaters were mostly from New England, and very left wing.”

The tournament, held this year in Kuala Lumpur, began on December 27, just a day after the Indian Ocean tsunami hit Malaysia and 10 other countries. The tournament went until January 2. The teammates, now safely back in Toronto, said that Kuala Lumpur escaped harm because the city is farther inland.

Despite their close defeat, the team mates are not sour over their loss.

“We didn’t expect to get as far as we did,” said Nairn. “We didn’t have any expectations; we were just happy to have made it that far.”