CWO Apprentice Joins Team UK for WorldSkills 2009

CWO apprentice stonemason Oli Clack has proved he is world class by winning a place in the international WorldSkills 2009 competition, to be held in Calgary, Canada on 2-6th September.

Oli’s success follows weeks of grueling training carried out at several venues across the country starting in January this year.  After a tough four-day competition held at Stephenson College in Coalville, Oli, from West Sussex and one of 65 original stonemasonry competitors, was chosen as a member of Team UK - a team of 26 skilled young people from across the UK who will fly to Canada to compete for a prestigious WorldSkills title. Oli was welcomed into the team by James Cracknell, OBE and Chris Humphries, UK Skills Chairman, at an exclusive event at the House of Lords on Tuesday 30th June 2009.

Simon Bartley, Chief Executive of UK Skills, who manage Team UK said “We are very pleased to welcome Oliver as a member of Team UK. The quality and dedication all our competitors demonstrated during the selection process was of the highest level, but the exceptional work that Oliver carried out proved to judges that he has what it takes to be part of Team UK and represent his country. Being selected for the Team however does not mean it’s time to relax. From now until September Oliver will need to train hard to make sure that he is up to the world class standard he needs to be at, to be able to compete against the best young stonemasons in the world.  We wish him luck in his final months of training.”

WorldSkills International was formerly known as the Skill Olympics and has now become accepted as the benchmark for world class levels in vocational training. The event takes place every 2 years with finalists competing in skills ranging from bricklaying to landscape gardening, cooking, floristry and stonemasonry, in which Oli will compete. Over 200,000 spectators are expected to watch a total of over 900 competitors representing the best of their age group, qualifying from regional and national competitions held in 51 countries.

If Oli wins, he’ll be following in the footsteps of other CWO apprentices; the company has a great history in this event with Nicholas Horton receiving a bronze medal in 1978 and Tim Neller winning gold in Japan in 1974.  

The UK’s WorldSkills team is managed by UK Skills working in partnership with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department for Employment and Learning Northern Ireland, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government and key partners from education, government and industry.  Brathay provide and support the training and development of Squad and Team UK and City & Guilds support Team UK and are premier sponsors of WorldSkills London 2011.