If the surprise of UKC 2015 was that Alexander Lau didn't win, then the surprise of this year's championship was that he did win.
After last year's shock defeat (finishing 5th) Alex had only competed once, winning the Macclesfield Open in July. Some said that he had stopped cubing!
Even though Alex's name was on the list of competitors, I got the impression that few people expected him to turn up... and on Saturday there was no sign of him.
But on Sunday he appeared. Hurray :-)
It didn't look like he was taking the competition too seriously. In round 1 of the one-handed (which he did win last year) he was 13th fastest and just good enough to make the final. He also didn't seem to be practising at all. I was sitting quite near him all morning and hardly saw him touch a cube away from the solving desks.
In round 1 he was 8th fastest, averaging 10.21 seconds. The first time he hadn't gone sub-10 in any round since the UK Open in 2012.
So that was it then. He was here to defend his title even though he was way off form? Very sporting to show up like that, I thought.
But the afternoon was different. Just before round 2 he started practising a bit. And I heard him tell a friend "I need to go a bit faster now".
In round 2 he was 2nd fastest, averaging 8.87 seconds. Very impressive, 3 eights in a row and then a low nine. So he was back! He took it easy in round 1 to take the pressure off. Game on.
And to prove that was no fluke he won the final in 7.85 seconds, with 3 sevens and a low eight.
Lots of other great things happened at this Championship, check out the results on the WCA site, but Alex's win was the stand-out moment for me. Winning is one thing; winning several times is another; but coming back from a set-back and winning again is probably the hardest thing to do. Well done!
