What is the World Championship of Public Speaking?

The World Championship of Public Speaking is the final round of Toastmasters annual International Speech Contest. The contest starts with over 30,000 Toastmasters competing at clubs around the globe. Then it continues through the Area, Division, District and Semi-Finals until only 10 speakers remain. The 10 finalist give their speeches at the annual convention in August and one is selected as the World Champion for that year.

Even if you’re not planning on joining the competition, watching these videos of select finalist can help you improve your own speeches and ability to impact an audience. If you’re thinking about competing, these videos will give you a clear idea about the type of speeches that win.

This collection of videos was put together by Don Shapiro who reached the District Championships in this contest and coached Pia Turner who took 3rd place at District. He has viewed over 40 speeches given in the World Championship round. From that, he selected the following 9 speeches for you to view. Many won the World Championship. Some took 2nd or 3rd. Don feels these 2nd and 3rd place speakers were better than some speakers who came in 1st in certain years.

This collection represents a very diverse group of speakers with different speaking styles. You might like some styles a lot and not care for others as much. You can learn something from all of them.

See how many things you observe that these 9 speakers did which made their speeches stand out.

2014 1st Place, Dananjaya Hettiarachchi, Sri Lanka

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbz2boNSeL0

2001, 1st Place, Darren LaCroix, Las Vegas, NV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puSUnj3gf_Y

2018 1st Place – Ramona J. Smith, Houston, Texas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tev43VNRIc

2005 1st Place, Lance Miller, Hollywood, CA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYVXNafMxgo

2018 2nd Place – Zifang “Sherrie” Su, Tianjin, China

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlvLgknrYQs

1995 1st Place Mark Brown, Georgia