Otago Girls’ High School pupil Sabrina Swerdloff (16) and Columba College pupils Lydia Joseph and Bridget Scott (both 17) were runners-up in the recent competition in Wellington.
But the added bonus was Sabrina and Lydia have been selected to represent New Zealand at the world championships in Croatia next month, and "the cherry on top" was Lydia would captain the team.
The team was humble about their placing at the national competition, saying the result should be attributed to their great coaches.
Lydia said the fact the trio were all very good friends also contributed to their success.
"We’ve been debating together since we were quite young."
Anyone watching the trio during a lunch break might think they were having an impassioned argument, but Lydia said they were actually practising their debating skills.
"It’s definitely natural. There’s always different issues that we’re all interested in and happy to chat about from different perspectives."
Sabrina said they were behind in their preparations for the world championships, compared with other teams from around the world who had been training together since December last year.
"We’re going to have to work really hard over the next five weeks so we can be competitive."
Lydia said they would travel to Auckland every weekend for the next five weeks to train with fellow New Zealand team members Nicholas Goodman (Hamilton Boys’ High School), William Price (Westlake Boys’ High School) and Alan Zhang (Macleans College), both of Auckland.
"We’re looking forward to debating issues against actual countries — debating with people who have had actual experience of some of the issues we’ll be debating.
"But I think we need to learn a lot more because New Zealand doesn’t have much of an edge in terms of global knowledge.
"Lots of the issues that we’re going to be debating aren’t going to have anything to do with New Zealand.
"It’s going to be interesting."
