PETALING JAYA: The Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) debate team is now ranked second in the world.

Its two members - law students Mohd Mifzal Mohd Murshid Kieron and Jasmine Ho Abdullah, both 22, - can hold their heads high going into 2016 at the World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) that is now taking place in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Last year proved to be a very good for Mifzal and Jasmine. Both were champions in the Cambridge Intervarsity Debate tournament (Cambridge IV) held in Britain in November. A team from IIUM also won the English as Second Language (ESL) category of Cambridge IV.

UiTM is now behind the team from University of Toronto, Canada.

Among the formidable opponents that UiTM outranked are University of Sydney, Yale University, Harvard University, Trinity College Dublin, the London School of Economics, Cambridge University, Oxford University, University of Pennsylvania, Durham University, Princeton University and King's College London.

The WUDC is the largest and most prolific tournament in the world and provides an annual team and speaker ranking generated after nine preliminary rounds.

Over 400 teams, representing more than 250 universities from 70 nations, are taking part in the Greece tournament until Jan 4.

The teams that make the top 48 will slug it out among each other in the knockout rounds to determine the overall champion.

Three Malaysian teams which made it in the top 48 are UiTM and two teams from the International Islamic Universiti Malaysia (IIUM) which are ranked 26 and 36 respectively.

The champion will be crowned during the Grand finals on the last day of the WUDC. The list of the world's best overall speakers will also be released on that day.

Here's hoping Malaysia maintains its winning streak!







