A recap of the Rubik’s WCA World Championship 2025
From July 3 to July 6, some 2,000 competitors and countless spectators crowded into the large Seattle Convention Hall in Seattle, Washington for the most significant event of the speedcubing calendar: the Rubik’s WCA World Championship 2025. For fans of this esoteric but brutally competitive sport, it simply does not get any better. All of the best cubers from all over the world, from Poland to China to Russia to Australia to the US to our very own Bangladesh, gathered in Seattle to participate in an exhausting series of daylong events, to answer one question: Who is the greatest cuber in the world today?
Just like the Olympics, speedcubing is divided up into different events, in this case, the solving of various types of “cubes” or what might be called twisty puzzles, many of them not at all cube shaped. There is, for example, the highly complex Megaminx, and then there is Pyraminx which is pyramid-shaped. There are lesser known puzzles like Skewb, Square-1, and Clock, which have their own specialists and niche body of knowledge. Most popular though, are the events involving actual cubes, which come in various sizes. There’s the 2×2, which is solved so fast that you’ll miss it if you blink. Then there are the 4×4, 5×5, 6×6, and 7×7 cubes, which involve considerable mental complexity in solving, and generally take long enough to solve that you can grasp at least some of the details of the action.
The holy grail of speedcubing though, is the 3×3. Quite simply, 3×3 is the original Rubik’s cube. It is as familiar as a pack of playing cards, and since its inception has been one of the best-selling “toys” in history. So while there are gold medals in various categories, the winner of the 3×3 event is the one who really gets the all-round bragging rights.
The winner of the coveted title in Seattle worlds was Chinese speedcuber Yiheng Wang (average time 4.23s in the final round). Yiheng has not yet reached his 12th birthday, so he is still, quite literally, a child, and yet in speedcubing he is already a legend. He first came to widespread attention within the community two years ago at the world championship in Korea, where he lost out on the gold medal to Max Park in 3×3 by a fraction of a second. Yiheng’s ascent in the scene since then has been meteoric. He has participated in a large number of competitions in the last couple of years, and has set the world record average (calculated as the average of five solves, with the best and worst solves discarded) numerous times. Yiheng’s rise signalled a clear shift in the change in guard in speedcubing. American-born Max Park, still considered by many to be the GOAT, due to the large number of world records he still holds, especially with the bigger cubes like 7×7 and 6×6, made an Instagram post right after Seattle worlds gracefully acknowledging a change in guard. If you look at overall career stats, Yiheng’s dominance in cubing is simply without question. Right now, as far as 3×3 goes, the only other cubers who even come close to threatening his dominance are the (even younger, also Chinese) Xuanyi Geng, and the charismatic Polish cuber Tymon Kolasinski.
Let’s now take a moment to give a shout out to our fellow Bangladeshis: Ayman Hoque and Muhtasim Al-Farabi, who have done so much for the cubing scene in Bangladesh, and have now represented us in worlds. Going into Seattle, Muhtasim held 8 national records and 18 podium finishes. Ayman, in the first round of Seattle worlds, set a national record in the Clock event, with a 6.12 second average. Ayman and Muhtasim give us hope that in future years, we will see many, many more Bangladeshis at the top level in cubing. Unlike many other mainstream sports, cubing does not require a significant amount of investment or infrastructure. Armed with a decent cube, an internet connection to watch cubing tutorials and breakdowns, and just hours and hours of practice, it is possible to get very good. Many cubing legends like Feliks Zemdegs reached dizzying heights simply practising in their bedroom in front of their computer or at the dinner table. Mid-range cubes are also pretty cheap and can be purchased at your local supermarket or stationary store, and that is enough to get good enough for competition at the local level. At the very top level though, cubers tend to switch to more high-end magnetic cubes, which are manufactured by Gan or Moyu. Rubik’s, though practically synonymous with cubes and the title sponsor for the world championship, is not the preferred cube for most speedcubers.
Congratulations once again to Yiheng Wang, as well as all other winners from across categories. As for those who didn’t quite hit the goals they set for themselves, there is always next time. All eyes of the speedcubing community now turn to the 2027 world championship, to be held in Uppsala, Sweden.
Abak Hussain is a journalist and writer. He knows how to solve a cube, but is very, very slow.