Washtenaw Community College student Mikala Sposito made history on the world stage Sunday, winning a bronze medal in welding at WorldSkills Shanghai 2026 and becoming the first woman ever to medal in welding in the international competition’s history.
Sposito, a Dexter resident, scored 723 points to tie Japan’s Ooki Fukui for fourth overall out of 37 international competitors, earning both competitors bronze medals.
China’s Qiansen Zhao won gold with 735 points. Korea’s Changyong An and Thailand’s Ratchanon Thipruecha each scored 728 to share silver.
The medal caps a journey of more than two years of increasingly intense competition and training for Sposito, who represented the United States against the world’s top young welders during four days of competition in Shanghai.
It also adds another historic first to a journey that began years earlier in a welding booth at WCC.
Sposito had already broken a barrier in March when she won the USA Weld Trials in Huntsville, Alabama, becoming the first woman to earn the right to represent the United States in welding at WorldSkills.
Now, she is the first woman from any country to stand on the WorldSkills welding medal podium.
Often described as the “Olympics of skilled trades,” WorldSkills brings together elite young professionals from around the globe to compete in dozens of highly technical disciplines. The 2026 competition, held September 22-27 in Shanghai, featured competitions in 64 skills.
For Sposito, simply reaching that stage required advancing through a grueling series of U.S. qualifying competitions before winning the USA Weld Trials.
But qualifying was never her ultimate goal.
After earning the Team USA spot, Sposito embarked on an intensive seven-month preparation schedule that included international competitions and training events in Australia, Canada and China, along with countless hours in WCC’s welding lab.
“You sacrifice so much just for the slight chance of making it to WorldSkills,” Sposito said earlier this year. “But the reward is incredible, and it feels even better knowing how hard I worked for it. I put my heart and soul into this competition.”
Her coach throughout the journey was WCC welding instructor Alex Pazkowski, who knows firsthand what it takes to reach the WorldSkills podium.
Pazkowski represented WCC and the United States at the 2013 WorldSkills Competition in Leipzig, Germany, where he won a silver medal.
Fellow WCC welding program instructors Glenn Kay (1997) and Brad Clink (2011) also reached the WorldSkills stage.
Thirteen years after Pazkowski stood on the WorldSkills podium representing WCC and the United States, his student followed him there.
Sposito arrived in Shanghai having already made history as the first woman to represent the United States in WorldSkills welding.
She left with a bronze medal — and another first.
Tags: Awards, Welding, WorldSkills