The Professions Olympics or “Wordskill“start this Thursday in Lyon and bring together hundreds of young people selected at the departmental level, then regional. This is the largest international competition for youth and vocational training. The opportunity for them to measure their skills while performing a complex technical test. Three icaunais distinguished themselves and obtained the right to represent the Bourgogne Franche-Comté region in these national finals.
This is the case with Méline Dupré. The young woman is in her second year of a BTS in hotel and restaurant management at the Lycée Vauban in Auxerre. Apprentice at La Côte Saint Jacques & Spa in Joigny, she has been preparing for this final for six months. For two days, she will have to go through the trials, going from a gastronomic service to flambé, before finishing with the cocktail preparation test. “These are repetitive training. One day it was a cocktail, the other was the flaming, one day we did everything to see what it could be like“testifies Méline.
Physical and mental preparation
To succeed, in addition to their traditional learning path, they prepare themselves, physically and mentally like top-level athletes. The Bourgogne Franche-Comté region has set up weekend courses for all the regional candidates. Internships to work the head and legs. “We did sports training, we worked on endurance, because the events are over two to three days, you have to be able to hold out physically, especially since for some jobs, it can be harder than for others.“says the young woman from Icaun.
All have repeated their range so that everything runs smoothly on the big day. Simon Lefèbvre competes in the kitchen category. Over 2 days, he will have to revisit the famous brioche sausage from Lyon, make a stuffed chicken ham or even a chocolate creation for dessert. All in very tight timing. Like cooks in television contests, Simon will have his eyes riveted on the clock: “The biggest enemy is time. You have to send everything on time otherwise you will have penalty points or the jury will not taste what you have done“.
For them, it is already pride in arriving in the national finals In Lyon. But they get caught up in the game, and the goal is to go even further. “There is the gold medal to aim for […]. I’m gonna do my best, if I can keep going, it’s all the better“confesses Emilien Coudray, originally from Villiers-Saint-Benoît. Passed by the Cifa d’Auxerre, he was immersed in mechanics, smelled the scent of engines from his early years.”My father is a mechanic, I was born in it, I caught the virus but if I had been told that at the time, I would not have believed it“shares the young expert who graduated from a baccalaureate in auto maintenance. On the program for him: an electrical diagnosis to be carried out – his favorite test, the dismantling / reassembly of an engine.
The laureats will represent France at the end of 2022, for the international final in Shanghai.