BEIJING, July 27 -- Two hundred young sudoku lovers set a Guinness World Record by successfully solving the largest multi-sudoku puzzle in the world.

"It is the first successful attempt at creating and solving such a large multi-sudoku puzzle," Cheng Dong, an authenticator from the Guinness World Records, said on Saturday.

The puzzle consisted of 200 standard Sudoku grids chained diagonally, with the overlapping areas complying with the rules of adjacent grids. It was created specifically for the event by members of Beijing Sudoku Association.

"The puzzle I got is a little more difficult compared with what I have practiced before," said Qiao Xixi, 7, one of the youngest students completing the challenge. "I was pretty worried when I saw my friends finishing the puzzle, until I finally solved it in 10 minutes. I felt excited and lucky to participate."

Contestants who just finished the two-day World Sudoku Junior Championship and young volunteers in Beijing solved randomly assigned puzzles, being careful not to make any mistakes in filling in the numbers, from 1 to 9, on the individual 9-square-by-9-square puzzles.

Following Sudoku rules, players must ensure that the same number does not appear twice in the same row, column or in any of the nine subregions.

"While it might sound simple for puzzle enthusiasts, setting the record is no easy feat for the puzzle maker and these youngsters. Designing such a complicated puzzle is time-consuming and every single part needs to be solved accurately on the scene," said Cheng, who oversaw the event and presented a certificate of the new world record to Chen Cen, representative of Beijing Sudoku Association.

"We hope that by setting the record, more people, especially teenagers in China, will get to know the glamour of sudoku, and the pleasure of solving the puzzle in the process," Cheng said.