Update: this record has been broken!
New Rubiks' Cube average World Record was set by the Chinese Yiheng Wang (王艺衡) with 4.69 seconds at the Yong Jun KL Speedcubing 2023 championship held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on March 12. He is only 8 years old and competed in 16 competitions so far.
In official WCA cubing competitions each competitor makes 5 solves, then they drop the fastest and slowest results and they calculate the average of the 3 in the middle. This means that Yiheng Wang didn't just make a lucky solve, instead he set the average record. The fastest single solve was set by Yusheng Du in 2018 (3.47 seconds) and it's still standing.
It Didn't Come As A Surprise
Current results of Yiheng Wang
The new record was somehow expected because in February Yiheng Wang came very close with a 4.91 result which was a new Asian Record. Then he got a 4.75 World Record average which was taken away due to a misscramble which didn't even help him.
The Previous Record
The previous record was set in July 2022 by Tymon Kolasinski at 4.86 seconds then in September Max Park tied that.
Tymon Kolasiński and Max Park, the previous record holders
The Solves
Yiheng Wang used a magnetic speedcube called GAN 12 Maglev that costs about $77 and he used the CFOP advanced solving method.
Below you can find the 5 scrambles he received in case you want to challenge his result. Please inspect the notation of the Rubik's Cube that explains what rotations mark the letters below in the scrambles.
- 4.35 – R2 D' F2 U2 L2 U2 R2 D' L2 R' F2 U2 B' U R D2 L R' F' U2
- 3.90 – B2 L2 B2 D2 R2 F2 D B2 R2 D R' B2 F L B2 D U' F2 L' U2 F' U2
- 4.41 – U2 R2 U L2 F2 U2 B2 F2 R2 B2 R' U' B' L R F' D2 B2 D R' U2
- 5.31 – D B2 L2 D' F2 U' L2 D L2 D L' R2 D2 B D2 U R U F' D U'
- 6.16 – B2 R2 U2 R2 D' U2 L2 B2 D' F2 R U' B' D' L' R B2 F D' F2