Dannevirke: Young tradie to face world's best

Dannevirke's Stacy Smyth, who works at RCR Energy, with the gold medal which has earned him a spot in the New Zealand Tool Blacks team at next month's Oceania WorldSkills competition in Hamilton. Photo / Christine McKay

Dannevirke's Stacy Smyth has been named in the New Zealand Tool Blacks team to compete at the Oceania WorldSkills competition against the best welders in the world.

The New Zealand team consists of 23 under-24-year-olds at the top of their game, in 18 different trades, who will compete against the best-of-the-best from China, India, Korea, Canada, Australia and Malaysia at the Oceania competitions in Hamilton in mid-April.

So far, more than 100 international competitors are registered to compete in 30 different skill categories at the event.

Stacy works full time at RCR Systems in Dannevirke and trains at night and the weekends for the WorldSkills event, which he qualified for by winning a gold medal during an intensive WorldSkills competition in Hamilton in July.

He also took out the top regional award in the same competition.

"The competition was good experience, being able to compete at the top and come through a winner was great," he said.

Each contestant has a personalised, hands-on mentoring programme to hone their skills, and a key part is the mental toughness training put together exclusively for WorldSkills New Zealand competitors.

Competition will be intense for the under-24-year-olds who are at the top of their respective trades for their age in the country.

They will pit themselves against demanding international standards to battle it out to try to win one of 18 spots in the final New Zealand Tool Blacks team to go to Brazil in August to face off against competitors from 71 other countries.