PETALING JAYA: Universiti Malaya has been crowned United Asian Debating Championships (UADC) 2021 champions after defeating Singapore's Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Singapore.

       Their achievement also saw them defeat teams from institutions in the Philippines and Hong Kong, among others.

       “The University of Malaya Law Review heartily congratulates the UM debate teams for their outstanding feat at UADC 2021," UM Law Review posted on Facebook on Monday (Oct 11).

       “Team Malaya 1, comprising Luc Choong, Patrick Cheang from the MBA programme, and Vinodhan Kuppusamy from the LLM programme, emerged as Champions of UADC after winning on a 9-2 split decision in the Grand Finals.

       “They were also ranked second out of 100 participating teams after the preliminary rounds.

       “Meanwhile, Catherine Alicia Nathan, Danesh Aggarwal and Kuhan Kartikkeyn from team Malaya 2 held their own, ranking at 10th place after eight preliminary rounds and emerging as Quarterfinalists of Asia,” the posting added.

       Cheang and Vinodhan, it said, were also tied for the sixth Best Speaker Award, with the latter crowned Finals Best Speaker.

       UADC is the largest inter-university Asian Parliamentary Debate tournament, according to UM Law Review.

       “From this impressive achievement, we hope that more students will be inspired to partake in intellectual discourse at the global stage,” it added.

       The university also congratulated the teams on its Facebook page on Wednesday (Oct 13).