Rebecca West can’t remember the moment when she heard her name called out in front of 50,000 people in a packed football stadium.
“It was like I wasn’t there – it was just crazy. I really didn’t think I had won,” she told Tes shortly after the closing ceremony of WorldSkills Kazan, the global skills competition.
But win she did, beating off her rivals from China and South Korea to claim the gold medal in beauty therapy. Now West has made it into the Tes people of 2019, representing the 37 young men and women from the UK who competed with distinction at the biennial skills competition, up against more than 1,300 participants from 62 other countries. Team UK performed creditably against far-better resourced nations – not least hosts Russia – to finish 12th in the medal table. The UK's only other gold came from Haydn Jakes of Nottingham University, in aircraft maintenance.
Golden opportunity
West's success was no flash in the pan. It all came down to four crucial days of competition in the Kazan Expo International Exhibition Centre – but this was the climax of years of hard graft. The former apprentice gained a place in the Team UK squad after competing at the UK finals in 2017. This was when the hard work really started. Days of intense training in a range of different beauty skills and techniques. Intensive training camps conditioning her to survive and thrive in a highly-pressurised competitive environment. This was all carried out on top of West's day job, working at the Bespoke You beauty salon in Hove, East Sussex.
But West had a powerful weapon in her armoury: her training manager, Jenna Bailey. Team UK has a gold-plated history when it comes to beauty therapy. At WorldSkills 2017 in Abu Dhabi, Kaiya Swain won gold. At EuroSkills 2018 in Budapest, Holly-Mae Cotterall claimed the title. Both were coached by Bailey. This year, expectations were sky high.
But West didn’t let that faze her. She remained calm, focused and determined throughout and blew the competition out of the water.
Ambassador for technical education
First on her to-do list after the competition was a holiday and a well-earned rest.
Now, as she leaves her competitor career behind, she’s a proud skills champion for Worldskills UK, visiting schools and colleges to share her story and encouraging more young people to consider apprenticeships and technical education.
Last month, West was back at the NEC in Birmingham for WorldSkills UK Live, this time to judge the young beauty therapists desperate to follow in her footsteps.
