<p>Yalies win international tournaments at Oxford and Cambridge.</p>
<p>"For the first time maybe ever, and certainly in institutional memory, an American school is respected internationally and thought of highly," said Michael Reilly, a Princeton senior and the 2006 American Parliamentary Debate Association champion. "This creates a bridge for America to do better." </p>
<p>Debaters take top contests
By Eli Bildner</p>
<p>Contributing Reporter</p>
<p>As a resurgent Bulldog football squad downed Harvard in Cambridge, across the Atlantic Yale debaters became the first Americans - and the first Elis - to win two of the international debate community's most prestigious tournaments. </p>
<p>Rising to the top of a field of nearly 200 debaters, Dylan Gadek '07 and Josh Bone '08 captured the Cambridge Intervarsity Championship on Nov. 18, just one week after fellow Elis Adam Chilton '07 and David Denton '07 became the first Americans to win the Oxford Intervarsity tournament. The two victories mark the first time any university has won both tournaments in the same year, and Chilton, the president of the Yale Debate Association, was also the first person to win the top speaker awards at both events. </p>
<p>The two tournaments - along with the World Universities Debating Championship, or Worlds - are debate's most prominent international competitions and draw students from nearly 40 countries. But European and Canadian teams have long dominated these three events as American debaters, who are accustomed to a distinctly American format, have struggled to adapt to international competition's British parliamentary format, Bone said. </p>
<p>"In England, debate is the preeminent extracurricular activity, and it gets a level of attention that is not bestowed on debate in the U.S.," Bone said. "In the past, American debaters haven't been respected in the international community." </p>
<p>But last year, Denton and Bone made it to the finals of Worlds - ending a 12-year final round drought for American debaters. Also at that competition, Beth O'Connor '03 LAW '07 and Rory Gillis '06 shared the top speaker award. Add that to this November's Oxford and Cambridge victories, and things are looking up for American debate, Chilton said. </p>
<p>"This is the first time Americans have shown they can compete," he said. "I think that [these victories] will make Yale clearly the best team in the world this year...</p>