This may just be the page for which a bias towards speedcubing is strongest, but statistically speaking, competitive Rubik’s Cube solving has become one of the largest communities of its kind in the world. Many forums and subreddits exist for obscure hobbies one may enjoy, but the global fanbase of speedcubing has developed a nerdy hobby into a drastically intense way of life for many people. Top solvers have become sponsored by growing Chinese speedcube companies like Gans, Moyu, YJ, and many others, all in an effort to spend as much time and energy as possible doing the activity they love. The arguable “king” of speedcubing, Feliks Zemdegs, has created a website training service, and coupled with his various sponsorships, has been able to turn speedsolving into his full-time profession. He along with many other hardworking individuals spend upwards of eight hours a day solving diverse puzzles in under three minutes. All of this recent attention has begun to preface an emerging question throughout the community: What is our next step in this cultural journey?

Ask cube founder Erno Rubik, and that question stops at nothing short of center stage global competition: The Olympics. I know, I know, speedsolving in the Olympics? Really? It may sound incredibly farfetched, but hear me out before you establish a concrete opinion.

Looking at competitive sports today, which events are we most likely to enjoy as a society, where the post people watch across the world on primetime television? For the Summer Olympics, this event is most certainly the one hundred meter dash. But what is so attractive about this seemingly obscure event? Is it the aura of enclosure within a stadium, or the joy of competition? Personally, I see the 100m dash as the primary olympic event due to the fact that the entire process is put on like a dramatic show. Commentators from around the world spend the two hours leading up to the race discussing the dramatic and hard-fought careers of each individual athlete, allowing each person’s story to connect with millions of viewers. The sprinters hold heroic poses walking up to the starting line, are able to show off their large muscles for the crowd, and still have enough time to assert their dominance over the rest of the field. Once the race finally begins, the entire duration takes a shorter amount of time than it takes to wash your hands.

Paralleling my example to the speedcubing world, Erno Rubik and his fans see the 3×3 speedcube as the prime event to draw vast amounts of drama and attention prior to its execution, where on average it takes a solver around seven seconds to complete the entire task. What could be more entertaining than that? The solvers sit stationary, so it will be very easy for camera crews to get high quality live video and slow-motion analysis of each solve, and their energy-inducing reactions can be shared immediately with audiences across the globe.

But you may be asking, what exactly would an Olympic-style speedcubing competition look like? Without having any confirmed information, most cubers believe that the event would be styled as a round-robin tournament, where randomly chosen seedings decide which competitors will face one another. Each solver will sit across from one another at a table with two timers positioned before them. Each side will have an official keeping track of each solver to retain all proper rules, and each solver will be allowed to use the cube of their choosing. When the scrambled cube is unveiled, each competitor will either have the exact same scramble, or two different scrambles. Regardless of this fact, both people will be forced to start their turns within five seconds of one another. This adds to the attractiveness of the event as it exhibits live intense action while pitting two professionals against each other live. Collectively, the event will consist of five solves each, where the fastest and slowest solves are dropped, and the three median solves are average for a final “average of five.” The speedcuber with the faster average of five will be declared the winner of the round, and this will continue until a victor is crowned.

I have never personally competed in an official competition, but from watching videos of past events, I can without a doubt reassure you that you would never regret watching these competitions live if you enjoy watching any type of sporting event that exists today. These people are often children ages 10-25, yet they are performing spectacular displays of pattern recognition and algorithm execution within tenths of a second, just as an Olympic sprinter today reacts to the firing of the starting gun within tenths of a second. The talent displayed by each solver is truly a level of competition that I have rarely viewed before in my life.

For now, speedsolving will continue to stand as a growing hobby and activity enjoyed by millions of puzzle-lovers across the globe. The attention and detail that is collectively put forth grows every day, and therefore is no doubt in my mind that in the coming years Rubik’s Cube Speedsolving will surface as a leading event performed for far more than a few hundred people. I cannot wait to see this day come, and I invite you to research this topic more for yourself, as you many become just as enveloped in this craft as I wish to be now.