World Sudoku Champs welcome China to play leading role

China is welcomed to play an important role in the field of international puzzle competition, Vitezslav Koudelka, director of the 2nd World Sudoku Championships, told Xinhua on Saturday.

"I was so glad that China took part in the World Sudoku Championship this time," Koudelka said during the World Sudoku Champship, which is one of the top puzzles competitions in the world.

Sudoku, which is translated from the Japanese language, is a kind of puzzles game that can be played through newspapers and internet.

Sudoku has attracted millions of people in Europe, America and Asia in the past few years since 2004 when it started to be published in major world media.

Referring to future development of the World Sudoku Championships, Koudelka welcomed China to be a member of the big family of the World Puzzles Federation.

"China is a big country, we welcome it plays a leading role in the world puzzles championship in the future." said Koudelka.

A total of 140 sudoku fans from 32 countries participated in the champs. Besides contestants of major puzzle powers such as the United States, Japan and Germany, the participants from China took part in the champs for the first time, which became one of the highlight of the Championship.

The Chinese team was represented by six contestants of different age and profession.

Zhang Weixiong, director of the Chinese team, said that it is important to get some competitive experience from the championship for the Chinese contestants this time.

In Saturday's competition, U.S. Thomas Snyder won the first place. Japanese Yuhei Kusui ended second, followed by Peter Hudak from Slovakia.

The best sudoku team was from Japan, followed by Americans. And Czech participants ended third in the competition of teams.

Koudelka indicated that the World Puzzles Federation would like to cooperate with China in the field of puzzles competition.

"As we know, China has a large population. In a way, this can help improve the popularity and internationalization of the puzzles game Sudoku around the world," Koudelka said

Source: Xinhua