The English team received the prize for overall best team. Shannon Naushutz won best English speaker while also winning the category for best English team with her partner, Tinotenda Kakora. From the Afrikaans teams, Deváiler Wouda and John Taljaard won best heads of argument and Lize Rossouw won best Afrikaans speaker.
This year the rules changed, making the competition more challenging. Previously finalists were given a fact sheet, with which they had to prepare a case, two months prior to the competition. This year, however, the finalists only received the fact sheet on Friday at 19:00, the evening before the competition. Naushutz explained that this meant preparing through the night. The long hours put in at the competition combined with extensive preparation prior to the competition gave Tuks the upper hand. Wouda explained that the level of preparation entailed the submission of new heads of argument on a daily basis.
The Tuks team identified that their advantage lay in their use of external benches. The bench’s objections helped prepare students for more difficult questions and made it easier to identify arguments according to Stiaan Krause, a member of the Afrikaans team. The students also gave credit to their coaches, who are all students and mooters themselves. One of the coaches, Carlien Wolmarans, said that, “ [the students were] prepared for any eventuality.”
It is their use of student coaches, a more formal approach and intense preparation that set Tuks apart from the other universities in this competition. Overall, the enthusiasm and dedication of both the coaches and students made Tuks the team to beat.
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