of the International Schools Debating Championships in Israel after another strong performance in yesterday's qualifying rounds.

The team of Jennifer Rhind, Jordan Zancanella, Trevor Leitch, Vincent Richardson and Ian Ostroff-Striffler had comfortable wins against Latvia and Croatia before thrashing the mighty Americans 3-0 in a debate on space exploration.

And with hot favourites Singapore also losing yesterday the results mean that the Island's students will have to lose badly in their remaining fixtures today against Israel and England and have a stack of other results go against them if they are to miss out on a place in the last eight.

Bermuda Debate Society chairman Terry Lister said: "We're really having to keep the team down at the moment.

"We've never been in such a strong position before. Last year we just missed out on getting to the quarter finals but this time it looks as though we're going to have to really mess it up not to get through.'' The quarter and semi-finals will be held tomorrow with the grand final scheduled to take place in Jerusalem on Thursday.