Speedcubing legend and Guinness World Records Hall of Famer Max Park (USA) has broken the iconic record of fastest time to solve a 3x3x3 rotating puzzle cube.
The 21-year-old achieved an astonishing time of 3.13 seconds, shaving 0.34 seconds off the previous record, which was set by China’s Yusheng Du in 2018.
Max broke the record at the Pride in Long Beach 2023 event in California, USA, on 11 June 2023.
Before this, Max’s fastest single solve was 3.63 seconds, which put him in second place behind Yusheng Du’s 3.47.
Max holds a multitude of other speedcubing records – in fact, he holds nearly all of them.
He holds both the single solve and average solve world records for the 4x4x4 cube, 5x5x5 cube, 6x6x6 cube, and 7x7x7 cube.
He had also jointly held the 3x3x3 average record along with Tymon Kolasiński (Poland) with a time of 4.86 seconds, until it was broken on 12 March 2023 by 9-year-old Yiheng Wang (China), who achieved a time of 4.69 seconds.
With this latest shake-up to the speedcubing world, we edge ever closer to seeing a sub-three-second record being set. Will Max be the one to finally do it?
Max is no stranger to setting seemingly impossible records. When he set the 7x7x7 single record with a time of 1 minute 40 seconds, cubing veteran Erik Akkersdijk described it as the most impressive thing he’d ever seen.
“The record will likely stand for some time,” Erik said. He was wrong though – Max went on to smash it in 2022 with a time of 1 minute 35 seconds.
Diagnosed with autism, Max serves as an inspiration for many people who are on the spectrum, as well as many who aren’t.
Max’s parents, Schwan and Miki, said that cubing has been “a good therapy” for Max.
“There was a time when Max couldn’t even open water bottles, but he showed interest in solving Rubik’s Cubes,” they said.
Max has come a long way since then, and he’s now an official ambassador for Rubik’s.
He has become a prominent figure in the cubing community, and over the years he has formed a close friendship with fellow speedcubing legend Feliks Zemdegs. The pair featured in the 2020 Netflix documentary The Speed Cubers.
Following his motto of “don’t think, just solve,” it’s only a matter of time before Max sets his next world record, and we can’t wait to see it.
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