Young bricklayer from Hunan wins gold at WorldSkills

A 22-year-old competitor from Changsha, Hunan province, has claimed the gold medal in the bricklaying category at the recent 48th WorldSkills Competition, contributing to China's fifth consecutive victory in this category.

The event took place from Sept 22 to Sept 27 in Shanghai. Huang Ruiqiang, born in 2004 in Huangxing town, Changsha county, competed against more than 20 top young tradespeople from around the world. The bricklaying contest demanded four days of intense effort, totaling 22 hours, during which each competitor had to complete a series of complex structures independently.

According to the WorldSkills organizers, bricklaying is fundamental to constructing much of our world. Competitors were required to measure and lay out from drawings, cut bricks, build walls, refine joints, and clean the finished work. The judging standards were stringent: verticality, flatness, joint uniformity, and corner accuracy all had to be maintained within a tolerance of 1 millimeter.