Euro 2016 Prague

When I was asked if I wanted to tag along with some UK cubers at the European Championships in Prague, I jumped at the chance.

It was a huge event with 525 solvers registering and the venue was a smart sports hall in Radotin on the outskirts of Prague in the Czech Republic.

As you can see from the flags there were many countries represented, 43 in fact, from all over the world - alphabetically from Australia to Vietnam.

Usually at cubing comps there are 8-12 people solving at once in the early rounds. At the UK nationals last year there were a few more, but here there were 28 solves going on at the same time (in 3 zones - blue, red, white) for most of the 3 days.

And the organisation was fantastic. Other than a small glitch on the first day when a side-room for the multi-blinders was locked, the whole event ran bang on schedule. Very, very impressive. Huge congratulations to the organisers.

The staff at the sports hall were great too. And there was a BBQ outside for lunch every day! Plus the little pizza shop up the road saw a 50-fold increase in business over the weekend :)

As I mentioned, not all the solvers were European. Feliks Zemdegs was there!

He is a really nice guy and just mixes in with all the other solvers. And he is very generous with his time - lots of people were coming up to him and asking for photos and autographs - and he just said "yeah, sure" every single time.

Obviously he's had a lot of experience dealing with star-struck fans! Here's what it was like in the early rounds when he was solving... you had to get there early or climb up on the tables to see...

And what an awesome solver he is. He broke 5 world records over the 3 days - 7x7 average, 7x7 single, 6x6 average, 5x5 average and one-handed average.

Here's a sub-10 one-handed that I was lucky enough to film from the front row. Note the gasps from the crowd (and the judge) at the end.

Unfortunately I only heard the fastest 3x3 solve of the weekend. It was Mats Valk's 5.13 second European Record. I was at the other end of the hall at the time when the huge cheer went up.

And it was great to see all the cubers congratulating each other on good times. They are competing, but all seem like good friends too.

The UK guys had some good performances too. In the 5x5 Robert Yau took the silver medal behind France's Alexandre Carlier and just 5/100 ahead of Breandan Vallance in bronze (those two have been having close contests all year).

Callum Hales-Jepp made the top 10 for several events and managed to win bronze in the 5x5 blindfold.

And all the less experienced solvers had a great competition. Well done to them for holding their nerve in such a big event. Some of them looked very nervous for the first few solves, but all of them came through with some good times.

I could probably go on typing all day, there was so much to see at this brilliant event. But I'll finish with one of the stand-out moments for me, which was the 3x3 blindfold final.

The organisers had asked for silence in the hall, as they usually do for blind events, but it was going to be tough with 1000 people all wanting to cheer good performances. And it was remarkably quiet... there were a few mini-cheers which were quickly stifled... the biggest of which was for Berta Garcia Parra.

Before these championships her best was 40s. In the first round she did a 35s solve and in the final she produced a 30.40 solve. Ten seconds off her PB in one comp. And she was delighted. The look on her face when she removed her blindfold was fantastic. And of course she wanted to jump up and down for joy... but couldn't because everyone had to be quiet.

And it was no fluke. Of the European solvers, she was fastest on average too, in this best-of-three event.

What a brilliant competition. Apparently it was the biggest Rubik's Cube competition to date. Well organised, great performances and a great atmosphere.