The Most Influential Rubik’s Cube Speedcubers
Whilst there are hundreds of thousands of people who can solve the cube worldwide, and tens of thousands that can solve it quickly, not many get to see fame. There are hundreds of cubing enthusiasts who rarely solve above 10 seconds, and even they aren’t always recognised. In this article we’re going to look at the speedsolvers who made the greatest impact in their time within the community, both with the introduction of methods and overall records.
Erik Akkersdijk
Erik has helped carry speedcubing to places thought previously unreachable. He has held several world records across a wide range of events since his debut in 2005, and set what was then the longest standing world record for the 3x3 cube, when his 7.08 single (which was in fact the first solve to break the 8 second barrier) survived over two years before it was beaten. He still attends competitions today, but surprisingly hasn’t managed to break his 7.08 single since it was set in 2008.
Minh Thai
Minh was the winner of the first speedcubing competition in the world, with a best time of 22.95 seconds. This competition was organised just two years after the cube was released, and the idea of speedcubing was still relatively new. No companies had produced cubes designed to be solved quickly, so Rubik’s brand puzzles were the only option. Many people today still can’t solve an original Rubik’s brand cube in this time; Minh set a new goal for cubers everywhere. Unfortunately, speedcubing didn’t grow much until the creation of the WCA in 2003. However, Minh’s record stays standing as the first of its kind.
Jessica Fridrich
Jessica attended the 1982 World Championships along with Minh Thai, but is better known for her speedsolving method. Its simplicity and easy-to-learn style means that it is the most well-known and favourite method for all, whether new or veteran. Despite having doubts about the limits of the method (she predicted that her method could not be used to solve the cube in under 13 seconds), it still is considered the most efficient method of all time.
Ron van Bruchem
Ron Van Bruchem has held three world records in his speedsolving career, including the coveted 3x3 single. He is most known for co-founding the World Cube Association with Tyson Mao, one of the most well-known cubing organisations in the world. The organisation lists all past and upcoming competitions, updates results regularly, and assigns competitors IDs so they can check their own results and rankings within different locations. It has widened the knowledge of competitions and has helped the competitive aspect of speedcubing grow much larger than it ever was.
Feliks Zemdegs
Feliks Zemdegs is arguably the best speedcuber of all time. With world-dominating skill across almost all events offered by the WCA, he is a powerful opponent for anybody who challenges his records. He is the current two-time World Champion (both in 2013 and 2015), and helped carry the world record 3x3 single down from 7.08 to 5.66 single-handedly. Despite not holding the single record for a long time, Feliks still holds the average world record which he set in 2017. Read more about Feliks Zemdegs here.
Zbigniew Zborowski
Zbigniew Zborowski is Polish, and his major claims to fame are the ZZ and ZB methods, along with the ZB subset ZBLL. The ZZ method is named after him, and the ZB method, as he worked on it in collaboration with Ron van Bruchem, is the Zborowski Bruchem method. ZBLL is an alg set that, once all last layer cross edges are oriented, solves the entire last layer in only about 15 moves. There are, however, almost 500 algorithms in ZBLL.
Lars Petrus
Lars Petrus (lar5.com) started when the cube came out, and he placed 4th in the 1982 World Championships with a time of 24.57. He is most notable for the invention of the Petrus method in the early 80’s. In 2005, he won FMC(Fewest Moves) at the World Championships with a 38 move solution, which set a world record and remained a WR until 2007, when Zbigniew Zborowski surpassed him.
He developed a 3D canvas cube animator called Roofpig that's even used on our site.
Tyson Mao
Tyson founded the WCA with Ron van Bruchem. He started cubing in 2003, during the comeback. He may have been inspired by the World Championships. He started using the beginners method, then moved on to Petrus and Fridrich/CFOP. He is credited with making the Caltech move popular; a cycle of 3 diagonal corners for blindfolded solving of the 3x3 cube. He also became popular for his unofficial beginners method, which is based on CFOP beginners and can be seen on rubiks.com. The method is most famous for being used by actor Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness.
Stefan Pochmann
Stefan is a German speedcuber, who is famous for inventing the Pochmann and M2/R2 methods. He started cubing around 1982, and then joined the new wave in 2003, after a lengthy hiatus. He became the first person to solve a megaminx blindfolded, and was the first official 5x5 blindfolded competitor. During the next 4 years after his return, he became a very good all rounder, setting records in Megaminx, Clock, Magic and Master Magic (before their removal in 2012-2013). He also invented the Pochmann method for Master Magic, and the Pochmann method for clock, which is still used today by all world class clock solvers. He appeared in a German talent show solving the cube underwater with one breath.
Max Park
Max Park is an American speedcuber who was born in late 2001 in California. He suffers from moderate to severe autism, and struggled with social interactions and fine motor skills. Speedcubing has helped him develop both of them, and he has helped speedcubing advance. His development is presented in the Netflix Documentary called “The Speed Cubers,”
One of the few people who are capable of challenging Feliks Zemdegs, Max is number one in the world for 4x4 average, 5x5 single, 5x5 average, 6x6 single, 6x6 average, 7x7 single, 7x7 average, 3x3 one-handed single and 3x3 one-handed average. He is 3rd in 4x4 single, 2nd in 3x3 average, and 5th in 3x3 single. He also used to hold the UWR (unofficial world record) for 3x3, a 2.80 time, until it was beaten by Luke Garrett, with a 2.73 on the 21st of February 2021.