19 medals for our professional national team

The final of the WorldSkills Competition 2022 was another highlight for the Swiss professional national team: the SwissSkills National Team was able to celebrate four more medals in Salzburg yesterday. Among them was a gold for mason Ben Zaugg (Bärau BE). This is the final result of this year’s decentralized WorldSkills Competition: Switzerland has collected 19 medals. By any calculation, number 1 in all of Europe, by the number of podium places or the so-called “average rating” (the number of medals per participant).

The world champions had been world champions before Maurer Zaugg: Juliana Thöny (confectioner/confectioner/Oberlunkhofen AG), Florent Lacilla (automotive mechatronics technician/Cottens FR) and two duos Silvan Wiedmer and Yunus Ruff (both Winterthur ZH) “Industry” 4.0 » and landscape gardeners Fabian Baumann (Oberdiessbach BE) and Marc Baumberger (Koppigen BE).

You can find them and other medal winners in this image gallery:

There are also 12 diplomas called the Medal of Excellence. “More than 55 percent of our team managed to get on the podium. Only the Chinese and South Korean delegations have a better medal ratio, says Martin Erlacher, technical delegate and head of the SwissSkills delegation.

Switzerland, in particular, has won the duel between France and Europe: our western neighbor will hold the next WorldSkills in Lyon in 2024 and then wants to succeed.

What makes the medals even more special: There are anxious years behind the SwissSkills National Team.

The coronavirus is to blame. The focus of young professional athletes was actually WorldSkills in Shanghai, which should take place in the fall of 2021. It was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic and postponed to 2022. More regional lockdowns followed this year in China, particularly in the Shanghai region. Because of this, WorldSkills in its real form was completely canceled in May. Are all the expectations, all the preparations in vain?

events all over the world

That shouldn’t be the case, according to numerous national associations, including the SwissSkills Foundation.

You created an alternative program over the summer: “WorldSkills Competition 2022 Special Edition”. Decentralized, professional world championships were held on almost every continent. In remote countries such as Canada, USA, Japan and South Korea. And in Switzerland: in Aarau, Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lucerne or Montreux. “Thanks to the decentralized format, it has been possible to give young and ambitious professionals the opportunity to participate in world championships and exchange ideas among the best professionals in their fields,” says André Burri, Managing Director of SwissSkills.