At the Nordic Championship and Nordic Open, there are three categories; Individual, Pair and Team (teams of max. 4 people).
The fastest Individual, Pair and Team wins first place, and all participants will have their completion times registered officially with WJPF (World Jigsaw Puzzle Federation).
We compete in Ravensburger puzzles, and in the Individual category and Pairs, you assemble one 500 piece puzzle. In Teams, you assemble one 1000 piece puzzle. None of the participants know the motif in advance, and the puzzles are delivered in closed fabric bags, so you only see the motif when the time starts!
There will be name tags on the tables so you know where to sit, and you will receive an email with your assigned table number in advance. The tables are 180×75 cm and in Individual and Pairs you share the table, so your puzzling space is 90×75 cm. In Teams, Each team gets one whole table.
You are welcome to stand up during the competition – remember to be considerate of your fellow competitors!
While you are puzzling, judges will walk around and keep an eye on everything. The judges can not help the contestants, but if you drop any pices on the floor and the judge notices, the judge will put a post-it note under the piece and leave it on the floor for you to pick up.
If you are close to finishing your puzzle, you raise your hand and a judge will come and note the exact time when you place the last piece. For each category there is an upper time limit – If you do not finish within the time frame, we count the remaining pieces (everything that is together and all “lumps” of at least 3 pieces count as placed). So you also get a placement even if you have not finished the entire puzzle.
If 2 or more *connected* pieces are missing completely from your puzzle, and are no where to be found, it is noted as a production error, and you will not get a time penalty for these pieces.
If you want to bring trays for sorting pieces, you can have a maximum of 2 A3 trays for Pairs and Individuals, and a maximum of 4 A3 trays for Teams.
For the Nordic Championships, contestants are also competing to win the running title, ‘Best Nation’ across all three categories.
In each category, the top 10 results earn points for their country; 25-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-2-1 points. When all events are completed, points are counted, and the nation with the highest total score will win the title ‘Best Nation’ and that country will hold the title until the next Nordic Championship.
