Nicolle cooks up a storm to bring back award

Nicolle Finnie, 20, picked up a medallion of excellence – meaning she has reached the elite European standard in her skill.

Chef Nicolle, who works at Andrew Fairle at Gleneagles won her medallion of excellence in the cookery competition.

She said: “It was so tough cooking in front of all those people (100,000 attended the event) – but I cooked up a storm on the last day – and got over the line.

“This has put me on the map in terms of culinary skills – and I want to go further still.”

The 22 women and men, who competed against their peers from across the Continent won one gold, three bronze and seven medallions of excellence (which is the highly coveted mark of elite international standard).

The results, which placed the UK in ninth place of 28 countries, bolstered organisers WorldSkills UK – whose mission is to accelerate careers and achieve excellence and optimum levels of skills performance.

Dr Neil Bentley, CEO of WorldSkills UK said: “This is a fantastic result for Team UK and the country as a whole. We were gunning for a top ten position and we got it!

“These brilliant young people – training and preparing them to be among the very best across Europe -are the UK’s new generation of high flyers.

“Budapest was a litmus test to see how the UK might fare when we leave the European Union next year.

“We had an amazing result and the team worked incredibly hard, but we can’t be complacent.

“Other countries across Europe are investing heavily in skills development, and we need to ensure we don’t fall behind.”