Whanganui Collegiate School student Olivia Simpson excels at New Zealand National Debating Championships

Olivia Simpson at Parliament with her Central North Island team and coaches.

Whanganui Collegiate School (WCS) student Olivia Simpson competed at the New Zealand National Debating Championships in Wellington as part of the Central North Island (CNI) team over four days recently.

The team did amazingly well, beating Waikato and Auckland (twice), and managed to ‘break’ into the semifinals where they narrowly lost to Canterbury on a 2/1 split decision.

Olivia performed exceptionally well, and as a result she was named in the five-strong New Zealand team to compete at the World Championships in Vietnam later this year.

In essence, Olivia is one of the top-five debaters in the country. As an individual speaker, there is no higher honour than being chosen to represent the country at worlds.

Costas Thrasyvoulou, who is the debating coach at WCS, is suitably proud.

“Olivia becomes the seventh WCS student to make the top NZ team since its inception in 1988, and she is the second female WCS student, following Jennifer Savage in 2008,” she said. “She is also the first CNI selection since 2015.″