Team Canada earns four medals at WorldSkills Shanghai

Ontario Construction News staff writer

Team Canada earned four medals at the WorldSkills Competition in Shanghai, China, including a silver in Refrigeration and Air Conditioning.

The competition, which concluded Sept. 29, brought together 1,385 competitors from 68 countries and regions across 64 skill areas.

Canada sent 31 competitors to compete in 29 skill areas.

Thirteen Canadian competitors also received Medallions for Excellence for scoring at least 700 out of 1,000 points in their respective competitions.

Construction-related Medallion for Excellence:

Bricklaying: Rene Letoile (Ontario)

Among the Ontario competitors, four represented Humber Polytechnic, George Brown Polytechnic and Centennial College. Cole Hunter and Grant Maddock competed in Mechatronics for Humber, Luca Assad competed in Cooking for George Brown, and Ethan Almeida competed in Autobody Repair for Centennial.

Ontario also had representatives supporting Team Canada in technical and coaching roles.

Team Canada experts from Ontario included Jurgen Hierholzer of Georgian College in CNC Milling, Bill Speed of Road Appraiser in Autobody Repair, Rene Letoile of Conestoga College in Bricklaying, Joshua Hamilton of Conestoga College in Mechatronics and Jeremy Braithwaite of Loyalist College in Mechanical Engineering CAD.

Ontario competitor trainers included Mark Millson of Excellence Auto Collision for Autobody Repair, Wei-Hung Juan of Humber Polytechnic for Mechatronics and Trevor Ritchie of George Brown Polytechnic for Cooking.

Competition managers from Ontario included Craig Brazil of Sheridan College for Industrial Mechanics and Angelo Spano of Centennial College for Heavy Service.

WorldSkills is held every two years and brings together young professionals and apprentices to compete in skilled trades and technology disciplines.

The next WorldSkills Competition is scheduled for Nov. 15-20, 2028, in Aichi, Japan.