Alma Belle Placed Fourth at Puzzle Championship
The 11-year-old competed for the United Kingdom at the 2026 World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship in Valladolid, Spain.
Updated on Sept. 25, 2026 in Gymnastics
Alma Belle finished fourth in the Teams competition at the 2026 World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship in Spain. Representing the United Kingdom, she also placed 13th in the Pairs category alongside Krystian Niedziela.
Why it matters
The event brought together competitors from 70 countries to solve complex 1,000-piece puzzles under competitive time constraints. Belle's top-tier finishes highlight the intense precision required at the elite level of international puzzling.
Belle and her team completed two 1,000-piece puzzles in one hour, 10 minutes, and 18 seconds in the final. In the Pairs competition, she and Krystian Niedziela completed a 1,000-piece puzzle in 51 minutes and 13 seconds.
The players
Alma Belle
She is an 11-year-old competitor who represented the United Kingdom at the 2026 World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship.
Krystian Niedziela
He is a puzzle competitor who partnered with Alma Belle for the Pairs competition at the championship.
The details
Competing in Valladolid, Belle and her team qualified for the final round by completing their puzzles in one hour, 10 minutes and 38 seconds. Her pairs performance followed a successful qualifying round where she and Niedziela completed a 500-piece puzzle in 20 minutes and two seconds.
Timeline
The 2026 World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship occurred from September 16 to 20, 2026.
Season Trajectory
The 2026 World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship results establish new benchmarks for international speed-puzzling records across global competition tiers. These finishes serve to rank participants for future international invitationals and confirm the competitive strength of the United Kingdom delegation.
Belle improved upon her qualifying team time of one hour, 10 minutes and 38 seconds by finishing the final in one hour, 10 minutes and 18 seconds. These metrics confirm her current standing among the top 1% of the approximately 230 teams and 500 pairs that participated.
The takeaway
Speed puzzling requires both rapid pattern recognition and the physical dexterity to assemble large piece counts under pressure. Mastering these skills allows top-tier competitors to consistently shave seconds off their finishing times in international finals.
Further reading
For more updates on global competitive events, explore the Gymnastics section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Gibraltar Chronicle.
