[lasfter]

Oh no! Sorry I didn't mean to disparage American debaters. I was saying exactly what you are: that LD doesn't transfer well to Worlds style. My point being that penalising dropped points didn't lead to spreading in other styles, so there has been a form of evolutionary divergence in the metas of different styles.

Also, American rugby is probably not as good because the good football players are, well, playing football ;)

The "that's your fault" comment was from the perspective of the judges. As in, in LD the judges can follow the breakneck speed whereas in worlds they don't bother to.

[pnmahoney]

No worries, I didn't exactly take it that way; I too meant it as you do. I.e the most competitive high school speech competitors don't compete in high school worlds competitions!

The most competitive ones, to start with, wouldn't blindly follow an LD style regardless in front of a judge pool and format which naturally abhors it and favors collaborativeness, wit, etc.

And yup, it is a bit more like this imaginary scenario: past high school, there is no more gridiron football (irrelevant sidenote: this does seem likely to happen given the CTE rates amongst players who don't proceed past high school) and so the next generation's Odell Beckhams will move to England after high school to become Premiership players. Which actually is a fascinating thought experiment too...

[throwawayjava]

It's worth noting that even among debate activities with very similar (even identical) styles, things sometimes "don't transfer well".

Knowing and understanding the nuances of the the judging pool and the competition are just as important as anything else, so teams that "transfer" between activities are always at a bit of a structural disadvantage. Especially at the elite level where the differences in raw ability and background knowledge start to become imperceptible.