If young Aussie competitors in the WorldSkills Australia (WSA) Competition 2008 thought they had a large crowd of spectators watching them over the weekend in Sydney, then participants should be excited about the globe watching their skills in Calgary, Canada next year!
In September 2009 (from the 1st until the 6th), the International WorldSkills event will be held in Calgary, where the best of the best from each participating country will perform against each other to determine just who are the ultimate skilled tradesmen and women in each category, ranging from hairdressing to cookery to landscaping, jewellery-making to bricklaying to carpentry, just to name a few.
Over 500 talented Australian male and female apprentices, trainees, students and qualified tradies, aged 23 and under, took part in the National WorldSkills Competition at Sydney's Convention Centre in Darling Harbour just last weekend, 11th-13th July 2008, to showcase their vocational and trade skills and be judged by experts, who today will announce the winners.
Around 60,000 people, including members of the public, watched as these youngsters put their skills to work during the intense three-day event.
Those successful will make up the Australian WorldSkills team, 'The Skillaroos', who will jetset to Canada next year to compete on a global scale in WorldSkills International, an event held every two years. This will signal the 40th WorldSkills International Competition, which will see almost 1,000 competitors from 49 countries compete for gold!
40 skill categories, plus up to eight demonstration skills categories will be presented in Calgary, spectated by some 5,000 international experts, delegates and judges.
The 2007 Skillaroos consisted of 27 national medallists who proved themselves in the 2006 WorldSkills National Competition. They represented Australia last year in Shizouku, Japan, where the International Competition was held and finished off in its current position of highly-commendable 5th place.
For more information and updates about Calgary 2009, as well as future WorldSkills events, have a look at the WorldSkills International website (see link in top right corner of this page).
