Singaporean, Li Shengwu (李绳武), grandson of MM Lee, is top debater

Maybe it’s in the genes. 🙂

You can read the news report on omy.sg or via Straits Times.com:

IT HAS been a good year for 24-year-old Li Shengwu. The Singaporean graduated five months ago as the top economics student at Oxford University.

And as the decade turned the corner, he was crowned Best Speaker at the just-concluded World Universities Debating Championships in Turkey.

Mr Li, a master’s student in economics at Oxford, took the top individual honour at the event – known colloquially as the ‘Worlds’ and regarded as the most prestigious debating tournament in the world.

He is the third Singaporean to receive the award, cementing Singapore’s status as a debate powerhouse. Since 1981, when the competition began, all Asian winners have been Singaporean.

The Best Speaker prize goes to the tournament’s most consistently exceptional debater and adjudicators were on Tuesday full of praise for Mr Li.

‘Without doubt, Shengwu is the finest Oxford debater of his generation,’ said one judge, Mr Daniel Warents. ‘This is a fact now recognised by the whole world.’

Here’s the video of the award-winning debate:

[youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/v/zfwJdaVEixU&hl=en_US&fs=1&”]

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