2022 Palm classic Tournament

Absolutely incredible tournament at Stanford! It’s sometimes difficult to take a step back during the heat of debate to appreciate everything that’s happening, but we want to thank all the students for the outstanding show of teamwork — from helping people prep, to scouting, to showing emotional support after a particularly tough round. Every success we had this weekend was 100% a VDA team effort!

In Varsity, hats off to Fred and Jessica for finishing in the top 8 of the entire tournament before losing a tough 2-1 round to the eventual tournament champions! This was especially impressive for Jessica’s first-ever Varsity tournament. Congrats also to Johnson and Andrew for finishing in the top 16 and Joseph and Rina for finishing in the top 32 — all six of our top Varsity finishers earned a gold bid this weekend to the Tournament of Champions in April. Andrew was also recognized as the Fourth Speaker of the entire tournament and Johnson was Ninth. Incredible work!

JV saw one of TWO VDA closeouts this weekend, with Dylan and Rosie sharing a championship with Daniel and Sally. Our teams made up 50% of elimination rounds! A very well-earned congrats to Quarterfinalists Ardelle & Grace and Raymond & Jack, as well as Octofinalists Dasnoor & Simrit, Henry & Claire, Mia & Jaslynn, and Roy & Max.

JV speaker awards were an absolute wash, with VDA winning 11 of the top 15 speakers. Mia finished as Top Speaker of the entire tournament, but we also had incredible showings from Jaslynn (5th), Raymond (6th), Dylan (7th), Claire (8th), Daniel (9th), Rosie (10th), Sally (11th), Jack (12th), Max (13th), and Simrit (14th). You are all way too talented!

Novice saw even more talent, with Nathan and Sophie finishing in the top 8 and Steven and Rebecca in the top 16. Steven also won Seventh Speaker overall, with Sophia at Ninth, Rebecca Tenth, and Nathan 14th!

We had our SECOND finals closeout in Middle School, where co-champions Serena & Selina and Ken & Jason brought home the biggest trophies of the weekend. They were joined by contenders Marek & Daniel, who finished in the top 8, and Owen & Nikki and Vivian & Xiao Bo, who made it to the top 16! In the speaker awards, Selina won Top Speaker of the tournament and her partner Selina was Second. Vivian joined them in the rankings at Fifth, while Nikki won 11th and Daniel took 15th.

Overall, it was an absolute beauty of a weekend, especially considering how difficult the topic is. As always, we’re all deeply impressed by everyone’s energy, commitment, and teamwork to keep things fun and interesting!