With 194 entrants this was the biggest cubing event ever held in the UK. The Forum is a lovely venue with lots of natural light behind the cubers. Great for solving, not so good for taking photos on my compact camera.
All 18 official events were held, although I didn't manage to watch all of them!
The biggest surprise was that Alex Lau didn't win the main Rubik's Cube event. After breezing through the first 2 rounds with averages of 8.87 and 8.73 where his worst time was 9.93 seconds. Somehow Alex only managed 9.57 in the final (including 2 solves over 11 seconds) for 5th place.
Top of the table was Ciaran Beahan of Ireland with a new National Record average of 8.45 seconds.
Top 3 UK solvers were Robert Yau (9.38), Sameer Mahmood (9.41) and Breandan Vallance (9.52).
All the results for the competition are on the WCA results page.
Some notable performances that I saw:
Breandan Vallance won the 5x5 with new European Records for single 52.21 and average 59.51 in the first round.
Sanzar Haiwad set new national records for Afghanistan in the 2x2 of 4.75 (single) and 6.64 (average).
Oliver Frost won the 3x3 Blindfold (again) in 32.75 which was significantly less time than everyone else spent memorising...
Callum Hales-Jepp won Feet with a new NR average of 42.89 and still insisted to me that he hadn't practised in ages. He also won the 4-blind and the multi-blind (which I missed most of).
With over 200 people in the main room the serious multi-blinders were shipped off to a quieter side room for their attempts.
At lunch on Sunday there was a panel session where Alex Lau, Robert Yau and Oliver Frost answered questions.
The answers that stuck in my mind were:
Alex Lau - to avoid plateaus be careful not to develop bad habits. You can do that by practising in a very deliberate way and analysing what you are doing. Don't just practise when and how you feel like.
Robert Yau - he invented the 4x4 method by extending the work of others and working through ideas with other people. His name was given to it by other people and other people made the method popular by using it. Robert also got a laugh by saying that 4x4 and 5x5 were his favourite events because 30-60 seconds was a decent time for a solve ... I think he meant that it's not over too quickly like some events (for him) :)
Oliver Frost - this had never occurred to me, but remembering previous blindfold attempts is a real problem when doing multiple attempts in a short time. Oliver said that using audio-based rather than image-based techniques helps because audio sticks in the mind for a shorter time. Oliver also described what it was like to break a world record!
All 3 were very diplomatic when asked what they thought of Rubik's Brand cubes. Speaking of which, here are about 1000 cubes used to make a mosaic of a famous character. Can you see who?
This was a great competition. Tiring, as it was a long weekend with lots of events. But great fun. I really enjoyed it; and I'm sure all the competitors did too.
I should have mentioned how high the all round standard was here. To get into the top 72 and make the second round of 3x3 you had to average under 20.10 seconds. That is amazing. If I had entered then my current PB would have put me outside the top 150 ... maybe next year :)
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