UPON FIRST acquaintance, the United States Air Force Academy, the University of Alaska and Cherry Creek High School in Denver, Colorado, do not appear to have a great deal in common.

True, it is possible that someone from Cherry Creek might have ended up in the academy following excessive exposure to Tom Cruise movies. Equally possibly, there may be annual reunions of the Cherry Creek alumni in Anchorage each winter, where the revellers take turns at digging each other out of their hotels.

Yet what undeniably unites these three institutions is that each has, at some time, played host to the winners of the Irish Times Debate, along with about 43 other US educational institutions. That these US institutions almost invariably are hammered in debates by the Irish visitors has not prevented them from asking our debaters back each year for the best part of two decades.

In that time, the Irish Times winners have participated in 135 such debates, which adds up to a lot of time, energy and duty free spirits. The tour is organised annually by Professor Gary Holbrook of Colorado State University - a patient man, whose reward will come in the next life - and the Friends of the Irish Debate.

Aer Lingus, to its eternal credit, continues to sponsor the participants' fights, opening up whole vistas of unspoiled scenery, one dollar beers and cheap denims.

This year it was the turn of the representatives of the UL Debating Union, Seamus Doran and Padraic O'Halloran, and Matthew McCabe of the Solicitors' Apprentices' Debating Society old Ireland to take Aer Lingus to New York, then proceed to Denver, Colorado, before engaging our colonial cousins in some rhetorical duels.

They were accompanied by Kerida Naidoo, convenor of this year's debate, just to make sure that they didn't do something they might not regret later.

The debaters engaged in four debates, three of them as a team and one in which they were split up to lend some backbone to the Yanks. Needless to say, they kept up the sterling reputation of Irish debating by beating the Americans in Colorado Springs, at which debate only one person in the 250 strong crowd voted against them - and he was a member of the opposition.

Two of the motions they debated concerned President Bill Clinton and his allegedly growing resemblance to Richard Nixon, apparently a matter of some concern to liberals and non liberals alike. "We had to win the one in Wyoming," Doran says. "They came out with the view that Clinton was a crook but Nixon was a great man who did great things and only resigned to protect the integrity of the office."

It wasn't all hard work, though. Our intrepid three and their minder, hired a Cadillac in Denver, Just to prove that they were ordinary folk underneath it all, and used it to visit the Coors brewery and Buffalo Bill's grave, where they paid tribute to the great man's memory with a snowball fight.

"It was brilliant," Doran concludes. "It's amazing how people will hero worship you when you kick their ass." A career in diplomacy awaits him...