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Wanted: World’s Best Young Printer

Becoming world champion is a dream for many. For one young printer, this dream will soon be realized - at the 39th WorldSkills Competition. The vocational world championships for young professionals will take place from November 14-21, 2007, in Shizuoka, Japan.

You do not necessarily have to be blessed with the talent of Pelé, Maradonna or Beckenbauer to become world champion. Nevertheless, winning the gold medal at the 39th Worldskills Competition is anything but easy. After all, 850 of the world's best trainees in 47 professions, such as cabinetmakers, chefs, and web designers, will compete against each other in the Japanese city of Shizuoka. Starting from this year, printers will now be officially competing as well. At the last Worldskills Competition 2005 in Helsinki, Finland, this "discipline" was still held as a demonstration competition.
Sebastian Steuer, 20, won the German Worldskills preliminary competition in Heidelberg.
Secret Print Job
Ten rising printers are competing against each other. Eight are from Europe, one comes from Japan and one is from New Zealand. Those hoping to triumph in Shizuoka will have to convince the jury with their test jobs. The task will be to print a still secret master print as correctly and cleanly as possible. Not only are the exact color values important here. They will also be judged on how economically the material is used and how quickly the correct result is achieved.

This is exciting news for Heidelberg: two of the ten candidates work for customer companies. The Japanese national Yasuhiro Suzuki from Toppan Printing and Sebastian Steuer from the Graphische Betriebe Eberl in Germany were able to prevail and qualify for the Worldskills Competition at the national preliminaries. The 20-year-old Steuer just completed his training and is now happy about receiving a permanent position.
Yasuhiro Suzuki demonstrated his abilities on a Printmaster PM 74 and emerged from the Japanese preliminaries as Tokyo champion.
Heidelberg also in the Competition
Heidelberg Japan is providing all machinery for the competition in Shizuoka: a Suprasetter A74, two four-color Printmaster PM 74, and a high-speed cutter POLAR 92 X. "The Worldskills Competition is a wonderful opportunity to promote the abilities of young people and benefit the Japanese print media industry," explains Kohei Yamamoto, President of Heidelberg Japan. In addition, Heidelberg is supporting the competition in another way. Karl Kowalczyk, Director of Heidelberg's Print Media Center, will be sitting on the jury for Germany. "As market leader, it is our duty to support rising printers in their professional development and promotion of their abilities," he says.

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