To cap off a successful start of the debating season, the Brooks Quimby Debate Council sent three teams and two judges to the 2010 Worlds Debating Championship in Turkey from December 27, 2009 to January 4, 2010. Colin Etnire '12 and Ian Mahmud '12 fared best among the three Brooks Quimby teams at the competition, finishing with 15 points after nine rounds of preliminary competition, with 18 being necessary to "break" into the top 32 teams in the world. The team of Matt Marienthal '10 and Rachel Kurzius '10 finished with 12 points, while Ariela Silberstein '10 and Nathan Sweet '11 finished with 13 points. They were accompanied by Coach Jan Hovden and Walter Garcia, who served as adjudicators.

The team's strong performance at Worlds moved the Brooks Quimby Debate Council up to the 25th best team in the world, and America's number 7. Additionally, Bates is far and away the top ranked institution in the world that does not have the benefit of graduate students, who are allowed to compete at worlds. Motions at the competition included, "This house would partition Sudan," "This house would allow terminally ill patients to choose drugs that have not completed testing," and "This house would hold communities responsible for complicity in honor killings." Other American teams fared quite well at the tournament, with almost a quarter of the breaking teams, and Harvard A team reaching the finals.

Next year's Worlds Debating Championships will take the team further from home. For only the third time in the history of the Worlds Debating Championships, the 2011 competition will take place on the African continent, at the University of Botswana in Gaborone.