As some of you already know, I'm leaving tomorrow on a trip to Shanghai, China to participate in their National Jigsaw Puzzle Championship hosted by @3d_jp_china in collaboration with @worldjigsawpuzzle 🥳🧩
This is definitely near the top of my list of craziest spontaneous decisions but here we are and I'm ready for it! 🤪
I will be competing in the individuals category on Friday and pairs category on Saturday with @4loveofpuzzles . On Sunday, we are also invited to compete in their exclusive 3D championship as guests, which sounds super fun! 🔥
I plan on making a recap video of the whole experience as both a memory for myself and to give all my friends and family some insight in this crazy adventure. ⛩️
To be continued...
#speedpuzzling #puzzling #shanghai #jigsawpuzzle
Day 2 of WJPC 2025 is in the books and it was a fun one!
After a quick stop at the TRAS2 puzzle store we went to check out @piecerelax their pop-up shop. They had a lot of fun little events, including a 42 piece speed contest where @puzzle_maite completely kicked my butt! Definitely go check them out, they're in Hotel Colon Plaza. 🧩
After that it was time for a nice brunch and then i went back to the airbnb to get some warm up practice with @annelies_0803 on one of the Canadian nationals puzzles. 🖼
And then it was for the big moment of the day, the highly anticipated individuals round A! I got my nerves much more under control compared to last year and after opening the puzzles I felt relieved. Even though I hadn't done the lake como in over a year, at least I had done it which always comforts me. 😊
After a very sweaty and hot battle I ended up in 48th place with a time of 00:57:05. 🥵 Definitely happy with that result, especially because I got revenge on @puzzle_maite who finished like 30 seconds later 😈 (In case it wasn't clear: we have a very fun/friendly rivalry going on because we always seem to finish within 1-2 minutes of each other 🤯)
Many people congratulated me and its always so nice to see when friends from home are watching you compete on the livestream as well. 🥰
After that we went for tapas at the exact same place as last year, quickly ran back to the dome to watch our Belgian friends from round C finish and then it was back to the airbnb where I did some more puzzle practice before going to bed 😴
Today will be a big day, with semi finals coming up! I'll be competing against a very tough field at 4 pm today, wish me luck because I'm gonna need it! 😅 🤞
Day 1 of the WJPC 2025 is in the books and we were off to a great start! 🥳
After arriving at the airbnb on Sunday evening and having a nice dinner at mama tacos with some of my greatest puzzle friends I went to bed pretty early to start working on fixing my sleep schedule (working with Americans means I usually sleep at crazy hours) 😴
Woke up at a reasonable time and decided to learn from previous years' mistakes right away by getting a healthy breakfast to start the day. Unlike some others who started the day with cookies and chocolate (definitely not @janetteandherpuzzles though!) 👀
Then it was off to the dome-shaped sauna for the World Record attempt! I helped a tiny bit with the numbering of the tapes last night so it was no wonder it went pretty smoothly, and we smashed 40,320 pieces in under 26 minutes! 🤯
Afterwards I went to find my Belgian friends and got to try our team shirts for the first time. Great design made by @puzzle_maite , they look awesome! We relaxed a bit under the very welcome shade of the trees, talked some strategy, took a group picture and then it was time for the country competition 🇧🇪
While the competition was fun, lets just agree talking for 10 minutes and having only 2 small trays wasnt the best preparation we could've done...? 😅 Big congratulations to our neighbors from the Netherlands though, who absolutely SMASHED it! 👏
After this we went for some celebratory drinks (we can just celebrate being together right? 😄) and a really nice tapas place that ill definitely visit again later! 🥕
I got back at the airbnb and of course if had to do some late night training like last year. Took on 2 of the trickiest puzzles used in Canadian nationals, Himalayan Harmony and A Walk In The Rain. Lended to me by the awesome @macbordeaux . Thanks Cameron! 🧩
Today is competition day as I'm in the dreaded group A. It's both exciting and nerve-wracking to be the guinea pig of all the new rules, but I'll just remember im here for fun and make the best of it! 🥳
Good luck to everyone competing today! 💪🧩
The first Belgian Nationals was a great success! Over 500 people ended up participating in one of our 3 events, which was more than we could've hoped for! 🥳
As always during these puzzle events, I met a lot of great people old and new, too many to name! It's so much fun to make friends that share your passion on a level that outsiders don't always fully understand.🧩♥️
Apart from this, I'm also very happy with my results! I participated in all 3 categories:
- 🔟th Belgian in individuals with a time of 56:46
- 🪙st in pairs together with @puzzl__inge with a time of 32:33
- 🪙st in teams together with @puzzl__inge , Fenna and Ruud with a time of 43:20
Congratulations to @britney.ponchaut for being the first Belgian Champion, well deserved! 🏆
A big thank you to all of the @speedpuzzling_belgium volunteers for making this day possible and a very special thank you to @andreasheyerick , who took the lead and did a phenomal job at making sure everything fell into place! Very impressive! 👏
#speedpuzzling #puzzling #ravensburger #worldjigsawpuzzle #nationals
We (Speedpuzzling Belgium) are proud to announce that the Belgian Nationals are officially happening next year!
Mark your calendars: 01/03/2025 in Oud-Heverlee (close to Leuven)
First of all a very big thank you to @aaossorio2020 for helping us out with the organization and @ravensburgerglobal for sponsoring the event!
Some practical information:
- For people with Belgian nationality or residency: registration will open on Dec 1st, 2024.
- For everyone else: registration will open on Jan 1st, 2025.
- Places are limited! Our current estimates are that we can host up to 120 individuals and pairs, and 60 teams. For this reason, people from Belgium get priority in the registration process.
How to sign up?
Registration will happen through the official website of the WJPC. There you can also find the exact address and more information about each event. Here is a direct link: /speedpuzzlingbelgium
Hope to see many of you there to compete!
Stijn
#speedpuzzling #ravensburger #speedpuzzle #worldjigsawpuzzle
The 24hrs of Hannut was an absolute blast! Starting at 3 pm on Saturday and lasting for 24hrs (as the name suggests 😅), this tournament is a real test of skill and endurance.
I got lucky enough to be invited to join team Jigspaghettaw, who finished 9th at Worlds! What an honor to be puzzling alongside these super fast puzzlers I've always looked up to!
My shift started at 9 pm on Saturday night and lasted all the way to 10 am on Sunday morning. Good thing I'm a night owl so I managed decently well I think.🦉
After all the dust was settled, we managed to get a place on the podium with an amazing 3rd place finish, after 2nd place finishers team Czech us out featuring @terezak.85 and first place finishers team No name featuring the one and only @alepuzzles . Big congratulations to both of them! 👏
@alepuzzles once again showed that not only he's an amazing puzzler, he's also an amazing friend because he came to support us during the hardest puzzle: a 2,000 piece Jan Van Haasteren! He recorded us putting in the last pieces of this grueling 3 am nightmare to give us something to remember this experience, thanks Alejandro!
Now it's time to practice 500 piece puzzles again for next week's Dutch nationals qualifier! 🧩
#speedpuzzling #puzzling #jumbo #hannut #janvanhaasteren
Just won my first local teams competition since Worlds with my team Piece of Mind organized by @milvia_priano .
Some of the images were very tricky but we managed to assemble about 5300 pieces in 8 hours. It's good practice on stamina for the upcoming 24hours competition in Hannut in 2 weeks 😅
#speedpuzzling #jigsawpuzzle
Last year at Worlds, I bought this puzzle and promised myself never to try it until Worlds 2024. I've seen the puzzle here and there throughout the past year but always forced myself not to look at it in detail 😅.
Its almost 1 year later now and here we are! I decided to do it 2 weeks early to avoid major disappointment in case of a bad result. Looking at the standings of last year I told myself anything under 1 hour would be incredible.
I exceeded my expectations here! Of course it's a totally different story if you know the puzzle and have a gameplan versus seeing it for the first time. I knew to start with sky, then move down to the greens. I knew about the 2 colorful pots at the bottom. I knew there was a blue door on the left, and that the bottom white tiles was something I could pick out.
Strangely enough, the chairs and tables was surprisingly doable. I lost a lot more time on the house because I kept looking at the box 😅
📦 Ravensburger: Marzamemi, Sicily
🧩 500 pieces
⏰️ 1:00:11
#speedpuzzling #worldjigsawpuzzle #wjpc2024
Another live event in the books! EJJ Trier was an absolute blast and honestly one of the best organized events I've ever seen!
Everything was clearly marked with signs, the tables and lighting were great, plenty of room to do casual puzzling and the 100k challenge gave it a bit of an extra purpose which was fun! Food and snacks were available and I got some puzzles at the puzzle swap that I was just about to buy myself so very happy with that.
Results were pretty decent as well:
SOLO: 1:02:21 for 21st place
PAIRS: 29:41 for 7th place
TEAMS: 1:07:13 for 4th place
Special thanks to Michelle and Erik for organizing such an incredible event and to all the volunteers who helped run things smoothly! Thanks to Ellen for carrying me to the top 10 in pairs and Lisbeth, Lynn and Fruzsi for being such supportive team mates! And last but not least, thanks to Thorsten, Fruzsi's husband, for filming me during my last minute of the solo race and giving me something to remember it by!
Now back to practicing for Worlds!
#EJJ #Eurojigsawjam #Trier #speedpuzzling
Finally beat 50 minutes on a round puzzle, very happy with my time on this one! Unfortunately it was a 2nd attempt, first try was at the end of May. I had 58:31 which was already a good time for me, but taking off almost 10 minutes with a time of 49:52 definitely felt like a good improvement!
📦 Ravensburger
🧩 Circle of Colors: Dreams, 500 pieces
⏰️ 0:49:52
#speedpuzzling #worldjigsawpuzzle #circleofcolors
It took me a while but finally another PR in the books! I was really hoping to hit under 50 minutes but I guess it's not my time yet 🙃.
Had a few misfits here and there but overall the quality was great and the image was very easy to assemble.
📦 Trefl
🧩 Cabin in the mountains, 500 pieces
⏰️ 51'01"
#speedpuzzling #worldjigsawpuzzle
