The second Danish Nationals broke last year’s record

By Pia Hegner, SkillsDenmark

Danish Nationals in Skills 2012 ended with an amazing closing ceremony where 30 winners from 27 different skills were nominated as Danish Champions. They got something better than a medal – a small hand crafted iron sculpture depicting their skill.

Three days of excellent skills and dedicated young craftsmen and women attracted more than 20,000 visitors, almost 50% more than last year, and a lot of media attention from both national newspapers and television. Many of the visitors came from far away in busses and spent a whole day at the competitions. The Minister of Education spent half a day trying her hand at various skills and giving praise to SkillsDenmark for the organisation of this great event.

The Chairman of the Danish Trade Unions' Federation Harald Boersting gave the young winners a strong speech reminding them how important they are as role models for all the young people who had been visiting the competitions:

You are the personification of young people who are proud of your skills, and who strive to be the best at what you do, Harald Boersting said and continued directly to the almost 200 competitors:

You inspire other young people to enter into vocational education and training, and we need that so bad. We need all the best skilled people we can get to secure our continued growth and development.

Next year in Aarhus

It was the second time SkillsDenmark organised a national competition in Odense, the home town of Hans Christian Andersen. This year 20,800 people visited the competitions, especially young people from compulsory schools and vocational schools.

Next year the competition will move to Denmark's second largest city Aarhus, and a local politician from the municipality of Aarhus was handed over the baton from Odense.

Former Minister of Education Bertel Haarder was also present to hand over a special prize of 1,000 euros, that he himself had received, to WorldSkills gold medal winner from London 2011 bricklayer Nicolai Munksgaard Asmussen.

Nicolai held a speech for all the competitors urging them to keep up their good work and reach for the moon: - Even if you don't reach the moon, you will still be among the stars, he said.

SkillsDenmark wishes to thank all sponsors and other partners. You can find pictures from the Danish Nationals at: www.flickr.com/Skillsdenmark. They can be used freely if you just use a photo byline: Danish Nationals / Kasper Kamuk.

Alongside the national skills competitions we also held a national competition in Health and Safety at the building trades' workshops. You can find all winners at www.skillsdenmark.dk.