A record number of international competitors to Kuopio
Finland’s professional national team includes 22 young experts in their respective fields. They will participate in the World Championships in their respective fields in Lyon on September 10–15, 2024. For many, the Taitaja2024 Kuopio competition is training for the big competition in September. Many of the Finnish professional teams will therefore get to the pressure test in May, and will face international competitors.
Skill competitions are widely known and respected competitions in the world. They will be watched from the other side of the world because of the well-executed sport arrangements, says Teija Ripattila, Skills Finland’s top coaching manager.
– Finland’s national skills team is training in Taitaja competitions for the autumn WorldSkills competitions. We have brought a record number of international competitors to practice competitions with Finnish competitors. The competition package offered this year has been really popular. I hope that future Taitaja organizers will also follow the example of this Kuopio way of increasing the arrival of international competitors to Taitaja, Teija Ripattila states.
In addition to the competitors, the event is expected to attract thousands of visitors from all over Finland and abroad.
– A record number of WorldSkills and EuroSkills competitors from around the world have applied for the Taitaja2024 competition. The farthest guests seem to arrive from Singapore and the closest from neighboring countries. Finland’s professional national team also trains during the Taitaja week in Kuopio, says Taitaja2024 event international coordinator Esa Heikkinen.
WorldSkills 2024 in Lyon
WorldSkills, the World Championships for young people, will be held next time in Lyon, France, on September 10–15, 2024. There are a total of 62 sports in the WorldSkills Lyon 2024 competition, which represent different professions in vocational education, from nursing to welders and from cooks to electricians. There are about 1,500 competitors in total, and 250,000 visitors are expected to Eurexpo Lyon.
Competitors aged no more than 22, are top professional experts in their respective fields. The experts act as experts and judges in the competition. The experts are often vocational teachers, and competition coaching is done as part of the cooperation between vocational education and working life.
An official professional national team from Finland will participate in the competition, which includes 22 competitors and 22 experts. The Finnish team participates in a total of 20 sports.
The Finnish professional national team consists of 15 vocational schools and their partners. As a member of the international organization WorldSkills, Skills Finland is responsible for sending the team and coaching the national team. Sport-specific training takes place in educational institutions and companies.
The goal of Finland’s participation in the WorldSkills competitions is the development of Finnish excellence and the internationalization of vocational education. Each competitor’s goal is to achieve at least the Medallion for Excellence recognition given for performance better than the average level of the sport.
