The Euroskills 2016 competition, for the ‘agricultural mechanic’ category, was held in Gothenburg, Sweden, back in December. One of 35 skill competitions in the event, the agri mechanic category was pitched at a very high standard according to the organisers.
The competition, of which Gothenburg was the fifth of its kind, is for young people below the age of 25 to demonstrate their skills in vocational professions across Europe.
From a shortlist of eight candidates, all of whom are from different countries, the overall winner of the competition was Anders Ebbekaer Pedersen from Denmark, who took the gold medal at the event.
In second place was Christian Hilpert from Germany, while Krisjanis Jurans from Latvia came third in the contest.
The full shortlist comprised Thibaut Laboute (23) from France, Mikhail Mesheryakov (18) from Russia, Anders Ebbekaer Pedersen (23) from Denmark, Dominik Stauffer (23) from Austria, Maurice Bakker (23) from the Netherlands, Maurice Haner (23) from Switzerland, Krisjanis Jurans (24) from Latvia and Christian Hilpert (21) from Germany.
The selected finalists had to complete five assignments over the course of three days, with a variety of objectives.
There were five key themes to the assignments: engines; hydraulics; electronics; repairs; and mobilisation. The tasks were conducted on tractors, engines, scrapers, balers and forestry machinery.
The candidates were judged on the obvious theory and practice categories, but also on thought process, health and safety, deductive reasoning, and on their explanations (which were given in English).
The judging panel was made up of a team of experts from around Europe: August Mussmann form Germany, Janis Vitols from Latvia, Valeriy Lyovin from Russia, Alexandre Cabrol from France, Per Hedetoft from Denmark and Werner Seltenhammer from Austria. In addition to these were Paul Dijkstra from the Netherlands, the head judge, and Paul Sidler from Switzerland, who was deputy head.
The event was a “huge success”, with a total attendance of 75,000 visitors at the Swedish venue. This was almost double the expected turnout.
Several television channels from across the continent sent crews to the event, including the two largest television channels in France – TF1 and France 2.
The next Euroskills competition will be held in Budapest, Hungary, in September 2018.
