Eleven-year-old Yiheng Wang has officially claimed the crown at the 2025 Rubik’s Cube World Championship, dominating the 3×3 event with unmatched speed.
The competition took place in Seattle, where speedcubers from around the world gathered for the World Cube Association’s flagship event. Wang secured first place with an average solve time of 4.23 seconds, a record-breaking average.
Wang leads a new generation of speedcubing talent
Wang’s final round solves were 5.45, 3.80, 4.31, 3.94, and 4.43 seconds, enabling him to edge out seven-year-old Xuanyi Geng, who finished second with an average of 4.49 seconds, per WCA.
Heading into the event, Wang was already a world record holder with a 3.91-second average, set at the Lishui Open in May 2025. Check out Wang’s reaction to winning the championship below.
To put into context just how wild those times are, hobbyist-level Rubik’s solvers take anywhere between one to several minutes to solve a single 3×3 cube. There’s no scientific average, of course, but generally speaking, professional solvers are in the region of 15 to 30 times faster than the average.
It’s also worth noting that the WCA holds separate competitions for Rubik’s Cubes of different sizes, including 2×2 and 5×5 cubes. As you’d expect, solve times for both are wildly different compared to the standard, most popular 3×3.
Wang’s win cements him as the youngest 3×3 world champion in WCA history and the first to win with an average under 4.3 seconds. The record was previously held by Max Park’s 5.09 seconds, set in 2023.
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