On June 17th, YiHeng Wang achieved a new world record average of 3.51 seconds which went slightly under the radar due to suspicions of sliding based on his previous world records which had to be carefully analysed by the World Cube Association and were determined invalid as he was making moves before the timer started. However, it appears that this world record has been determined valid as it has not been removed yet.
This new world record is 0.2 seconds faster than the previous world record held by XuanYi Geng and was not expected. Their solving styles are very different from each other - YiHeng Wang will always solve OLL followed by PLL and make no attempt whatsoever to influence the edges to have a cross solved OLL, while XuanYi Geng always solves the cross during F2L, this allows him to do a ZBLL and always solve the last layer in one look but at the expense of worse recognition and longer F2L solutions, it will be interesting to see if XuanYi Geng gets the world record back soon.
solve 1:
z2 // inspection
D' U R' D2 R U' L U L' U' D // xcross - interesting xcross with the F2L pair solved into the back setting up for back slot of the next pair.
U' f R' f' // 2nd pair - interesting way of inserting the F2L pair, I doubt many cubers can fingertrick this well.
U L' U' L // 3rd pair - nice easy pair
U R U' R' y' U R' U' R // 4th pair - no attempt at preserving cross edges at all despite that being quite obvious and possibly a better F2L solution
U2' r U R' U' r' R U R U' R' // OLL
U2' F R U' R' U' R U R' F' R U R' U' R' F R F' U // PLL (Y Perm)
view at alg.cubing.net
solve 2: good quality video is unavailable.
Solve 3:
y' // inspection
U' R U2' L D' L // cross - well he is at least dual colour neutral!
U' R' U R2 // 1st pair - back pair cancelling nicely into the next back pair
U R' U L U L' // 2nd pair
y' U R' U' R // 3rd pair
F' U' F // 4th pair - I am sure he was very happy with this F2L stuff but for a solution like this it could have been even faster, possibly sub-3
U' R U R' U R U2 R' // OLL
U' D' R U R' U' D R2 U' R U' R' U R' U R2 U2' // PLL (Gd Perm)
view at alg.cubing.net
solve 4:
x' z' // inspection
D U r' R' U' R2 D L' D // xcross
R U' R' U R U' R' // 2nd pair
L U y' U R U R' U' R' F' R // 3rd/4th pairs - interesting multislotting
U' r' U2' R U R' U // OLL
F' r F L' U' L U L F' L2' U L U' // PLL - clever cancellation into the J perm.
view at alg.cubing.net
solve 5:
z2 // inspection
D' L R D R' U D // cross
L' U L // 1st pair
R' F R F' R' F R F' // 2nd pair
y R R' R U R2' U' // 3rd pair - strange hesitation but cancellation into next pair
F R F' U2' R U R' // 4th pair
U2' R U R' U' R' F R F' // OLL(CP)
M2' U2 M2' U M2' U2 M2' // EPLL - H perm AUF techniques
view at alg.cubing.net
