European champion
Jonas Lauhoff picked up gold at EuroSkills in Gdansk. for himself and Team Germany.
I remember that at the end I really stepped on the gas, I was completely in the flow and everything went like clockwork,"recalls Jonas Lauhoff. After two years of hard work and intensive preparation for the EuroSkills, and three intensive competition days that took everything he had, it all came down to a head-to-head race between a Swiss, a French and a German carpenter. It was an incredibly close decision, and meant Jonas Lauhoff was crowned European champion. He won with 733 out of a possible 800 points, with Switzerland's Michael Bieri just 2 points behind him.
When Jonas Lauhoff talks about the competition six months later, he seems to still have a fair amount of adrenaline left over. That's partly because he fulfilled a dream at the EuroSkills in Gdansk, but also because he worked so unbelievably hard for it. The Thuringian native completed his carpentry apprenticeship at Zimmerei & Holzbau Ständer, a small, specialist operation in Geismar. After his journeyman's examination, which he passed with top marks, Jonas Lauhoff won one competition after another. He joined the national team in June 2021, and nine months later was nominated to participate in the EuroSkills in Gdansk.
"The real challenge was to work precisely and efficiently under huge time pressure. You literally had to be able to do every little thing in your sleep. Otherwise you wouldn't stand a chance."
Jonas Lauhoff
Then his intensive preparation for the competition began. The task: That involved building an extremely tricky pavilion with complex wooden joints, laps and interlocking elements in just 19 hours. "The real challenge was to work precisely and efficiently under huge time pressure," explains Jonas Lauhoff. "You literally had to be able to do every action in your sleep. Otherwise you wouldn't stand a chance." That was also the case when it came to mastering tools and machines. The Festool tools he used included the KAPEX KS 120 and four Festool routers: "They are just amazingly reliable and precise," says Lauhoff – adding with a smile: "Just like me!"
Jonas Lauhoff wears this self-belief like a medal round his neck. The fact that he cannot go on to enter this year's WorldSkills in Lyon is down to his age. In the meantime, the young carpenter is doing his master craftsman's diploma full-time – which will be comparably easy for him after the European championship.
Precision under huge time pressure
