Luxembourg won a medal at WorldSkills 2026

The 2026 WorldSkills International Championship in Shanghai was one of the largest in history: the competition took place across an area of 400,000 square metres and attracted around 800,000 visitors. Over four days, 1,400 competitors from 65 countries competed in 64 disciplines. At the end of the competition, 21-year-old Jannik Bares from Luxembourg was awarded a medal for professionalism in the ‘Plumbing and Heating Installation’ category. This award is presented to participants who did not finish in the top three but achieved outstanding results and high final scores. Despite technical difficulties on the first day of the competition, Jannik Bares completed his practical project several hours before the official deadline. His mentor, Loïc Perrin, who had been coaching him for two years, praised this achievement and expressed his intention to include him in his team of experts for future competitions.

The other members of the Luxembourg delegation also successfully tackled challenging practical tasks within a tight timeframe. In the landscape design category, Bjarne Weber and Florian Theisen created an Asian-style garden featuring a bridge, completing their work literally in the last five minutes. The participants deliberately prioritised the visual aesthetics of the project over maximising their marks on formal criteria. William Cao successfully passed the digital construction tests, noting the extremely high level of difficulty of the exam project. Eighteen-year-old Karim Speidel represented the country in the catering category. He was required to serve a full set of dishes and drinks. Whilst carrying out the task, the contestant paid particular attention to the finer points of etiquette — in particular, the rule of serving women first at the table, which is a critically important factor in assessing professionalism in this area of competence.

In the tournament’s overall medal table, the host nation, China, dominated: more than half of its competitors won gold medals. The national teams from South Korea, Taiwan (competing under the name Chinese Taipei) and Switzerland also achieved strong results. Claudine Thoma, the technical delegate from Luxembourg, emphasised that winning a medal is direct proof of the effectiveness of national education programmes. According to her, the main aim of participating in such competitions lies not only in sporting results, but also in training skilled personnel for the real economy. Building on the experience gained, the Luxembourg delegation has already begun preparations for the EuroSkills championship, which will take place next year in Düsseldorf. There, the national team plans to expand its line-up and cover a wider range of vocational disciplines.