Cat Operator Challenge won by German contestant

German plant operator Sebastian Behr is the winner of Caterpillar’s Operators Challenge for 2008.

He is the first German contestant to win the competition in the 11 years it has been running and won two out of the eight challenges.

• Watch a video of the Cat Operator Challenge on Nick Drew's Digger blog

In the other rounds he gained enough points to beat off competition from 45 other operators from 20 countries.

The highest UK entrant was 14th placed Jimmy Anderson who is now contracting in Thailand working with plant and equipment.

Nigel Pritchard, an operator, safety officer and trainer at Hawk Group came 16th and Don Doherty an operator with family firm Doherty and Lafferty Fencing contractors finished in 18th position.