At WorldSkills 2011, Girl Power Prevails in the Offset Printing Category

For the first time in the offset printing category, the gold and silver medals went to two young women. The pace was set by 22-year-old printer Makiko Ito, who finished some way ahead of Susanna Virtanen from Finland.

Makiko has been working for the Asia Printing Corp. in Japan since 2008 and honed her skills on a Printmaster PM 74 from Heidelberg. In 2010, she won Japan’s national championship in the printing category. Silver medal winner Susanna Virtanen works at a print shop that forms part of the training institute in Turku, Finland, which is equipped with a Printmaster PM 52 four-color press. Alongside her job as a printer, Susanna is a college student in the Finnish town of Jyväskylä.