The 2011 MBA Extemp Round Robin is now a part of history. The 2011 winner is Nabeel Zewail of San Marino High School in California. Zewail went wire-to-wire, never relinquishing first place during the ten rounds of the tournament. He also took first place on nine of the eleven ballots in the Exhibition Round, which is an MBA record. Both of Zewail’s national circuit victories have been in round robin tournaments. He won the George Mason University Extemp Round Robin last month. He is the first California extemper to win the Round Robin and the fourth extemper in the tournament’s thirteen year history to win the tournament and the Exhibition Round in the same year. Nathaniel Donahue of Durham Academy in North Carolina, the leader in the National Points Race, placed second in the tournament. In the Exhibition Round, Jared Odessky of Nova High School in Florida, who placed third in the tournament, finished second to Zewail. The topic area of the Exhibition Round was recent news, as all questions were taken from news that had transpired over the last twenty-four hours.
The Exhibition Round was recorded by the National Forensic League and will be posted on NFL TV. Jason Warren provided some post-round comments, which will make the video very insightful for extempers. When the video is posted on NFL TV, we will link to it here at Extemp Central.
Here are the final results:
Champion: Nabeel Zewail (San Marino High School, California)
2nd: Nathaniel Donahue (Durham Academy, North Carolina)
3rd: Jared Odessky (Nova High School, Florida)
4th: Kevin Ye (Gabrielino High School, California)
5th: Karthik Sastry (Montgomery Bell Academy, Tennessee)
6th (next out by 1 rank): Curan Mehra (Scarsdale High School, New York)
All of these extempers have earned points toward the 2010-2011 National Points Race. These standings will be updated by the end of the week. Extemp Central congratulates all of the Exhibition Round participants and all those invited to compete at this year’s Round Robin tournament.
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Looking at the standard deviation graphs posted by Dr. Moss, it looks relatively similar to last year, except the top 4 were more spread than last year, when Dillon and Jane were barely separated, and Aaron and Nabeel kept trading spots.