About 500 young Manitobans are participating in a provincial trades and technology skills competition at Red River College's Notre Dame campus today.

This is the 20th year for Skills Competition Manitoba; it's a hands-on showdown at the secondary and post-secondary/apprentice level. Forty contests are held in the fields of robotics and manufacturing, 3D character computer animation, construction trades, hairstyling, and more.

Skills Manitoba board member Nancy Wheatley says secondary and post-secondary students compete separately for gold, silver, or bronze in their field.

"For them, because of their trade and their training, this is the Olympics for them... (there's) a lot of training (that) goes into this," she says.

Winners of the provincial competition go on to nationals. The national competition is being held in Winnipeg this year from May 31st to June 3rd.

Wheatley says from there they can even go on to the international competition, which will be in Abu Dhabi this year.

Today's medal presentations are being held at 3:30 in RRC's south gym.