A 20 year-old worker from GB Air Control in Huddersfield has won the semi-finals of SkillFRIDGE 2009, the UK air conditioning and refrigeration competition.
Jack Bottomley is the young competitor who beat 15 other contestants in the SkillFRIDGE semi-finals on April 22-23.

Hosted at South Birmingham College, the two-day semi-finals round required cooling contestants to demonstrate their skills in a seven hour practical test (brazing and electrical wiring) and complete a theory exam.

Jack Bottomley is now facing a new challenge in the competition's finals but to claim the title of UK SkillFRIDGE winner he must freeze out the highest scoring runners-up from England's semi-finals as well as beat Northern Ireland's semi-finalist winner and runners up.

The SkillFRIDGE 2009 finals takes place on July 21-23 at South Birmingham College.

The UK SkillFRIDGE winner then get the opportunity to be coached and selected for the WorldSkills competition in 2011, otherwise known as the Olympics for talented young air-conditioning professionals.

The 16 competitors were selected for the semi-finals after being nominated by their employers and training centres. The competition is organised by SummitSkills, the sector skills council for building services engineering. SummitSkills is urging acr bosses to come and watch the competition and find out how getting involved can benefit their business.