Thousands of competitors and spectators from around the globe gathered in Incheon, South Korea, on the country’s Independence Day weekend to participate in the World Cube Association (WCA) Rubik’s Cube World Championship 2023. As the biggest competition in the history of the WCA since its founding in 2004, the competition attracted nearly 3,000 participants from 62 nations.
From August 12th to August 15th, the bustling competition served as the venue for three World Records (Tommy Cherry’s 3x3x3 Blindfolded Average of 14.15, Hill Pong Yong Feng’s 5x5x5 Blindfolded Single of 2:18.78, and Max Park’s 6x6x6 Average of 1:07.11) and 21 Continental Records to be broken (WCA).
Aside from the competition, the venue also held side events such as meet and greet sessions with record holders and Youtubers, Korean selfie booths with frames specifically designed for the competition, and pop-up vendors from cube manufacturing and sales companies, such as Exmars Cube and Cubenanna.
The competition’s opening ceremony, which exhibited host nation South Korea’s traditional music “Nongak” and martial arts “Taekwondo,” received significant interest from participants, as did the flag parade that highlighted the diversity of the competition’s participating nations.
Though an unofficial event, the third night’s Nations Cup bolstered national pride among competitors and the cheering crowd as the three fastest cubers from each of the participating nations raced in a tournament, resulting in a podium of China in first place, the Philippines in second, and the USA in third.
As expected, the 3×3 finals, being the very last event of the competition, received the most enthusiasm both from competitors and spectators. “3×3 is always the most exciting,” said Felix Zemdegs in Netflix’s documentary The Speed Cubers. Widely perceived as the GOAT of the cubing community with 121 World Records, and holding the 3×3 World Record Average of 5 from 2010 to 2019, Zemdegs’ long devotion to the sport radiated from the mention of the 3×3. “It’s the Rubik’s Cube. It’s the original cube. You can lose everything else, do really terribly, but if you win 3×3, it’s great, it’s all that matters.” Winning by just an average difference of 0.01 seconds, Max Park, the current 3×3 Single World Record holder, of the United States was crowned the World Champion of 3×3 with an average of 5.31 seconds. Current 3×3 Average World Record Holder Yiheng Wang from China followed in second place with an average of 5.32, with highly anticipated winner Timon Kolasiński, currently second in the world for the 3×3 Average, in third due to his unfortunate counting 6.49 seconds in his last solve.
The next WCA World Championship is scheduled to be held in Seattle, Washington in 2025. In the meantime, the love for cubing within the cubing community will continue to create bonds among its members beyond the competition. As expressed by 12-time World Record holder Tommy Cherry in his exclusive interview with the Register Forum, “I think the best part of the cubing community is the fact that all sorts of people can be united by such a unique interest. We’re all motivated by the pure fun of solving puzzles, making friends, and sometimes even traveling to new places for competitions.”
The Rubik’s Cube & Puzzles Club strives to promote the enthusiasm for 3D puzzles from beginner to professional level solving. The club provides simple hands-on courses on how to solve your first Rubik’s Cube as well as competitions with speedcubers both in and out of school. Members will have the benefit of free cube hardware management, as well as speed cube loans. More information can be found with Google Classroom code: azm4jxk.
This article also appears in our September 2023 print edition.
