20-year-old George Scholey (UK) has achieved the record for the most rotating puzzle cubes solved in 24 hours with an incredible 6,931.
Finishing up his record this morning on Guinness World Records Day, George was whisked away to be presented with his official record certificate by GWR Editor-In-Chief Craig Glenday.
George is the reigning UK cubing champion and considered one of the best speedcubers in the world according to the World Cube Association.
But even with his credentials an experience, this gruelling record was no easy feat.
Situated in a hotel room in London for the full 24 hours, stretching from 8am on 9 November to 8am today, George livestreamed his attempt so avid Rubik’s cube fans could check in on his progress.
The previous record was 5,800 cubes achieved in 2013 by Eric Limeback (Canada), whose solve time averaged 14.89 seconds.
To surpass this record, George had to shave seconds off of each cube solve.
Roughly averaging an unbelievable 12 seconds per cube, according to George’s team, his swift pace meant that within a few hours he was on track to beat the previous record.
George kicked off by solving 327 rotating puzzles in the first hour alone.
By the eighth hour of the attempt, he had solved over 3,500 cubes.
"The hardest part of the record was hitting the 12 hours mark," he commented about the attempt.
"I felt pretty drained and everyone else was so excited. They were celebrating, saying ‘you’re on mark to break the record’. But then I was like: it's only 12 hours."
"That was quite the challenging part, because by that point I had no idea how it was going to go."
Technology didn’t help: around midnight, an unexpected pop-up on the laptop George was using to log in his solves risked slowing down the final count.
Thankfully, all technical issues were resolved and didn’t jeopardize the attempt.
Overcoming tech issues, mental blocks and fatigue, George powered through and streaked past 5,849 solves with four hours still remaining on the clock.
Instead of taking this as an opportunity for a well-deserved rest, George continued until the timer ran out, amassing over 1,000 more solves. Despite seemingly putting the record beyond contention, George was slightly annoyed with the result!
"Toward the end of the night I saw I was getting closer to 7,000, and I’m a bit annoyed I didn’t get that result. But that’s fine. I also took breaks, and it’s an attempt over 24 hours."
"In the end, I think I did the best that I could. I’m just happy to have broken the record by quite a lot." - George Scholey
George’s latest record-breaking achievement follows another staggering solve session for the most rotating puzzle cubes solved on a skateboard.
For this record, George had to beat a minimum of 300 solves but he skated way past that requirement, and decided to continue on with the attempt until he reached a huge 500 solves.
Now studying English at Queen Mary University, Mile End, the champion discovered the world of cubing when he was around 13 years old thanks to another hobby: magic tricks.
At first, George asked his dad for two rotating puzzles to learn a trick that involved a Rubik’s cube.
He started from the very beginning, mastering the four steps necessary to solving a rotating puzzle.
While learning, he set himself the goal of trying his hand at one step each day: this way, by the time he could solve a cube he mastered all the steps thoroughly.
He solved his first Rubik’s cube in about two minutes and then continued improving his skills, training for even six hours a day and amassing thousands of solves in a short time.
That initial passion for magic tricks kickstarted a journey that, scramble after scramble, would take George to compete in national and international events – and even break two world records.
Today he can solve a two-by-two cube as quickly as 1.5 seconds.
The champion's dexterity and endurance certainly encapsulate the "Super Skills" theme of Guinness World Records Day, and we can't wait to see if he's going to break more records in the future.
For now, we are sure that George is going to celebrate and get some well-deserved sleep after 24 hours of cubing.
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