Albert Vidal Award
The WorldSkills Calgary 2009 Albert Vidal Trophy
Statue by Canadian artist Vance Theoret
Canadian soapstone from British Columbia
The stone carvings of Vance Theoret, a carver of Mohawk descent, are inspired by his love of wildlife and strong sense of imagination. Using alabaster, soapstone, chlorite and moose antlers, Vance draws life and vitality from natural contours and unique patterns to create elegant, timeless works of art.
The Albert Vidal Award
The Albert Vidal Award is named after the founder of WorldSkills International, Francisco Albert-Vidal. Vidal, a Spanish visionary, was responsible for the achievement of many original goals in a changing world, with 33 years as an untiring promoter as Secretary General and seven years as President of the International Organization. The Vocational Training Competitions became his life's work and the International Organization was shaped into what it is today. In memory of Vidal, the Award is given to the Competitor that achieves the highest score out of all the Competitors at the WorldSkills Competition.
The Albert Vidal Award is connected with the implementation of the 500 mark system, developed by former WorldSkills President Cees Beuk, after the WorldSkills Competition was held in Osaka, Japan in 1985. The new system was developed upon the request from the Technical Committee Chairman René Gonthier, who wanted to make the Competition scores more comparable and universal.
With the new system, it became possible to compare the scores from skill to skill and from Expert to Expert within each skill, making their scoring behaviour more transparent. The new system became effective in 1988 (when the WorldSkills Competition was held in Sydney, Australia) at which the "Best of the Competition Award" was introduced for the first time.
After Albert Vidal's death in October 1993, the Award was renamed (proposed by Tjerk Dusseldorp, current President, WSI) from the "Best of the Competition Award" to the "Albert Vidal Award" in order to honour the contributions of Albert Vidal for his decades of devotion to the WorldSkills movement. The new name of the award first became effective in 1995 when the WorldSkills Competition took place in Lyon, France.
