Xuanyi Geng Crushes the 3×3 World Record Single – 2.51 Seconds!
Xuanyi Geng Crushes the 3×3 World Record Single – 2.51 Seconds!
The 3×3 World Record single has remained 2.76 seconds by Cuboss sponsored Teodor Zajder since February 8th 2026. Considering the vast number of people capable of lowering this WR given the right circumstances however, it has been widely understood that the lowering of this historic first sub-3 second WR solve was just a matter of time. The prime two contenders have always been Chinese prodigies Yiheng Wang and Xuanyi Geng, having previously traded world records in both the single and average category. Another solver getting the WR would require an insane amount of luck but was far from the realm of possibilities, something which the 6th of October 2026 would remind us of…
With the Chinese National Day Golden Week holiday in full swing, the fastest cubers in China and beyond gathered over Monday and Tuesday in Guangzhou for the Guangzhou Grand Open 2026. Having ten out of the 13 fastest 3×3 solvers in the world at the same competition means that new WRs is a serious possibility. So while the first round didn’t produce anything too crazy, the second round would see the two fastest solves ever completed. Main contender Xuanyi Geng struck already on his first solve of the average and performed a flawless 32 move solution to solve the cube in only 2.51 seconds, a whole quarter of a second lower than the previous WR. Not only did he crush the WR single, but he also then went on to win the round with a 3.87 second average missing out on a new world record average chance if only one of his last two solves would have been faster.
But as if that wasn’t crazy enough, later in the very same round, a relatively unknown cuber from Hong Kong, Yang Pin Xiu, managed to beat the old WR with a 2.74 second solve. The solution he found was only 18 moves long, unheard of for a normal speedsolving solution (and in fact shorter than the national record for solving the cube in the shortest number of moves possible in 60 minutes in the Fewest Moves event). While he can certainly be happy about his impressive and unexpected achievement, we can only imagine that there will be a slight disappointment in the fact that his 2.74 solve would have become a new world record single had he achieved it the day before.
2.51 World Record single scramble: B2 D2 B2 D R2 U’ F2 D’ U’ B’ D2 B2 U2 R2 D F D’ F2 R
Inspection: x’ z’
XX-Cross: U’ Rw’ R2 U’ R2′ D’ R2 U R’ D’
F2L 3: U’ R’ U’ R
F2L 4: L’ U’ L
ZBLL: R’ U R U R’ U2 R U R D R’ U2 R D’ R’
