Connor Cruden, who came top in 2019 at the SkillPLUMB UK finals, won the Medallion for Excellence at the WorldSkills Plumbing Finals in Germany this month.
Connor ended the day ranking as 7th best in the World, sitting just 13 points away from the eventual gold medal winner, from Austria.
The competition, which was originally scheduled to take place last year in Shanghai, was relocated to Germany because of Covid-19 restrictions in China. It was held under the auspices of Grohe and involved participants from 20 countries, including three observers from Ukraine.
Connor said: “What a fantastic event. It stretched over three days and we were thrown straight into the thick of it with challenges including installing a bathroom and waste water pipes.
“It was 19.5 hours of intense competition, at a really high standard, and, after Day 2, I was in the lead. I was ahead of the pack – but on the final day I made a couple of stupid mistakes. I knew as soon as it happened and it cost me the points that could have brought me a Gold.
“I had trained hard and I entered the contest confidently. I would like to thank the Scotland and Northern Ireland Plumbing Employers’ Federation (SNIPEF) for all the help, assistance and encouragement they provided to get me to this point – and also for a very generous, and very unexpected, financial consideration they gave me to mark my effort.”