At the final of The International Master Fitter Competition, the gold medal together with the huge world cup, a modern designed bottle of champagne and the title International Master Fitter 2010 went to Emiel Baans of The Netherlands. The silver medal hung around the neck of Antonio Grieco, Italy. The bronze medal was for Jeff Olive, United States.
Other countries taking part in the competition came from Germany, Hungary, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Romania and United Kingdom. The participants performed in replacing a door window, replacing a back light, repairing a windshield and replacing a windshield. For each of them a new Opel Astra was available.
The Rules of the Competition were based on criteria for quality and health and safety only. Matteo Planca, the chairman of the team of 10 judges underlined in a statement during the award ceremony that at the very end the differences in the performances of the competitors were limited. On the respective elements they were more divided among themselves.
Champion Baans got most points on the replacement of the windshield and joint with Antonio Grieco, Masaru Sasaki (Japan), Mathew Cassells (United Kingdom) and Jeff Olive on the replacement of a broken door window. Tibor Szabó (Hungary) and Bjørn Erik Rognlien (Norway) made the highest scores in the repair of a windshield. Last mentioned participant triumphed on the re-installation of a backlight as well.
Emiel Baans, owner of a Novus Glass shop, was nominated by VASNED because of his sky high results within the certification program of this InterAutoGlass member organization.
Hiroshima Ebina, vice-chairman of InterAutoGlass underlined is a short presentation the international dimension of the event. “The competition allowed everybody to learn a lot from each other. Although vehicles, glass, repair systems and adhesives are truly international, we noticed the differences in working methods among the technicians. Watching this is an excellent exchange of information, as we learned once more”, he stated.
InterAutoGlass’ managing director Pim de Ridder was pleased with the autoglass repair and replacement participation during glasstec, world’s leading tradeshow for glass at Messe Düsseldorf with over 45,000 visitors, 1,300 exhibitors and 63,000 m2 of expositions. “The international competition like the German national versions the days before got attention from many glasstec visitors and colleagues in the glass industry. The events help us a lot to promote our specialist sector and enables national groups to work on similar events”, he said.