Börse Express – WorldSkills: Heart-stopping finals at the World Skills Championship in Salzburg
On the last day of the competition, the eight red-white-red specialists are still fighting for the last few millimetres, hundredths and points. The medal ceremony will follow on Sunday.
It’s Saturday, shortly before 12.45 p.m. in the exhibition center in Salzburg. The construction site has already been swept, the last traces of the three intensive days of competition are still being done in a hurry. Now the official countdown begins: “5, 4, 3, 2, 1!” Over, over. The concrete workers finish their competition first. Now everyone has to put down their tools.
Austria’s participants, the Lower Austrians Jonas Schulner and Oliver Waily, take off her helmet. Bathed in sweat, arm in arm with coach Thomas Prigl, they come to their families, fans and teammates. Cheers and applause break out in the Austrians’ annex. The “Bohemian Dream” on the accordion and cheers are intoned. Oliver’s family hugs their son. Tears of pride and relief flow.
Current photos from competition day 3 You will find here.
It can’t be ignored and overlooked: WorldSkills, the world championships for trades, have reached the home straight. Fingers crossed one last time for red-white-red is on the program today. On the last day of the competition, everything was demanded of the eighth Austrian starters at the World Championships. Up to the last second, the local aces mark, measure and wall in competition with the world’s best.
The plant electricians will also finish their competition in a few minutes. As a final step, the Upper Austrian Philip Brueckner commissioned and programmed the industrial plant that had been assembled in the previous few days. Now it’s a matter of testing the manual and automatic modes – and troubleshooting if necessary.
High tension in all competitions
Opposite, in the chemical laboratory technology competition, works Caroline Pahl from Tyrol still highly concentrated on their final analysis tasks. forwarding logistician Marko Nebrigic from Vorarlberg is meanwhile preparing for his final presentation: he spent three days creating complex logistics plans and is now supposed to “sell” them on the international stage. In English. For the builders, it is exciting to the last to see whether the participants will be able to finish the final project – masonry with the year 2022. The Styrian Killian Lupinsky works particularly cleanly, precisely and uses every minute that is left. His electrical engineering colleague Christopher Rumpler, also from Styria, gets little of it. He built and commissioned a complicated “smart home” circuit. And also the Salzburg agricultural and construction machinery technician Killian Wallner still has his last module to complete, troubleshooting a simple excavator.
Many parameters
Then the hour of the international jurors will come. You are facing an intensive period of measuring and evaluating. No movement of the last three days has gone unnoticed. Not only the final result is included in the assessment criteria, but the entire development process.
“The approach to the task is very important for us. When it comes to identifying a problem, not only the time required is relevant, but also a structured methodology,” explains Andreas Scharler. Like his international colleagues, he has a double function: on the one hand he is the coach of Salzburg medal hopeful Kilian Wallner, on the other hand he is also a juror for the agricultural and construction machinery technicians. Decisive: Scharler of course only lists the performances of Wallner’s competitors, while the red-white-red World Cup starter is evaluated by the coaches of his competitors.
The same applies to Roland Mittendorfer: The Eferdinger trains building builder Lupinski and at the same time is even “Chief Expert”, i.e. chief juror. “Occupational safety, cleanliness at the workplace and creativity also play a role in the evaluation. There are many parameters in different work steps that are decisive,” says Mittendorfer.
outliers excluded
The evaluation procedure is based on strict and transparent reasons: In case of doubt, the jurors must agree on a common number of points, outliers by a single decision-maker in the evaluation are excluded. The participants with the highest number of points win gold, silver and bronze. Finally, a complex system makes the points comparable across competitions. Just as a guide: In the end, the range of points is usually between 600 and 800 points. Candidates who score over 700 points but miss the step on the podium are recognized with a “Medallion for Excellence”.
Flag handover to Lyon
Now it’s time to wait: The winners of Salzburg will be chosen on Sunday from 4 to 6 p.m. as part of the official “Closing Ceremony”. Part of the program is passing on the WorldSkills flag to the officials from Lyon, the organizer of the 2024 WorldSkills Championship. There, as usual, all the competitions are to be held within one competition week. On the other hand, this year’s World Skills Championships – after the cancellation of Shanghai – went off successfully in 15 countries. A total of 45 Austrian specialists have won nine medals: With five gold medals, two silver and two bronze medals and 17 “Medaillons for Excellence”, Austria is sensationally in second place in an EU comparison – ahead of the World Cup competitions in the city of Mozart . In the history of the professional world championships, red-white-red has been able to celebrate a total of 86 gold, 68 silver and 73 bronze medals to date. (PWK492/HSP)
Austria’s medal record at this World Cup (Status: before the competitions in Salzburg)
Gold: Christoph Pessl; Styria; painter
Gold: Alexander Gfellner; Upper Austria; Tiler
Gold: Florian Blum; Tyrol; Sanitary and heating technology
Gold: Anna Karina Feldbauer; Upper Austria; stonemason
Gold: Nicola Hochegger; Styria; floristry
Silver: Lukas Schwärzler; Vorarlberg; mechanical engineering
Silver: Patrick Danninger; Upper Austria; Refrigeration and air conditioning technology
Bronze: Lucas Dolinar; Vorarlberg; Mechanical CAD
Bronze: Wolfgang Ramminger; Styria; carpenter
Pictures from the competitions (Credit: Skills Austria/ Florian Wieser – is continuously updated)
More information about the professional competitions can be found on our