Welcome to the 2024 Thales Cup Tournament. Here we emphasize effective communication, civility, and competition within debate as a way to prepare for your upcoming qualifying tournaments. We will conduct this tournament at Thales Academy Rolesville on Saturday, October 26th 2024 and it will include a middle school and high school division. Each division will be competing for the Thales Cup. Keep in mind that this trophy will be awarded to the winning school, but must be brought back to the next tournament, where the new winning school will take it home with them.

We offer the following formats:

High School Division:

Lincoln Douglas Debate

Team Policy Debate

Middle School Division:

Lincoln Douglas Debate

Team Policy Debate

Our 2024 Topics are:

Team Policy- Resolved: The United States Federal Government should significantly reform its foreign policy toward one or more of the following countries: Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.

Lincoln Douglas- Resolved: In the United States criminal justice system, jury nullification ought to be used in the face of perceived injustice.

A few notes for the coaches/parents:

1) Coaches must register their students via tabroom. Each participating school should provide at least one judge per two student entries (one per policy team). Coaches and teachers are encouraged to be judges as well as parents. This tournament is intended for those who plan on registering for the upcoming spring qualifying tournaments with ASDA. Middle schoolers who want to compete may do so for the sake of practice with the resolution. The primary purpose of this tournament, however, is to help prepare competing students and foster relationships within the network community.

2) The tournament is $10.00 per student and exclusive to Thales students. If you need travel assistance please reach out. In the event of drops, you must immediately notify the hosting school.

3) All judges must have email accounts and phone numbers in case tab staff needs to reach out to them during the event. Please reach out to us if you have any questions about judging. We are happy to help!

4) All judges must be available for the duration of the tournament as anything can happen and we may need to use you, even if you were not originally slated to judge that round. All judges must be 18 or older, and have graduated from High School.

5) Competitors should be dress in business professional attire

Tournament Schedule:

All Formats: – Eastern Standard Time

Check in Will begin at 8:30 AM

Thales Cup Point Format:

1 point for each round won per student/team

3 points for each student/team that makes it to the semi final round

5 points for each student/team that makes it to the final round

10 points for the champion of each division

School with the most points (calculated by the tab staff) will win the Thales Cup.

Each division champion will receive an individual plaque

Questions:

If you have any questions, please reach out to Cory Johnson via email at cory.johnson@thalesacademy.org