Designed in conjunction with the speed-cubing community, participants face one another in a series of one vs one knockout rounds, to find out who is the fastest Rubik’s Cube solver in a never-before-seen competition. India is sending participants (1 in each category) for the world finals in 4 categories: ‘Speedcubing mixed’, ‘Speedcubing women’, ‘Fastest Hand’ and ‘Re-Scramble’.
Vijay Kishore and Lakshmi Rajaram from Chennai were acknowledged the winners. While Vijay won the Speed Cubing (mixed) category with 6.350 as his best timing, Lakshmi won the Speed Cubing (Female) category with 12.768 as her best timing.
“When I started solving the cube I was able to do it in 2 mins but the more I solved, the quicker I kept improving and that was definitely fascinating at that time and it still continues to be fascinating how far I’ve come,” says Vijay Kishore.
He still feels fresh from October 2012 where Vijay took part and witnessed a national record broken by Dharmesh Shahu from which he drew inspiration. Vijay won 2 national championships in 2015 and 2018 and has broken the national record by solving the cube in 5.72 seconds.
Explaining about Speed Cubing, Lakshmi Rajaram says, “My brother was also into cubing and initially it was just him who used to attend the cubing competitions. I got interested in cubing only after seeing the competition area myself. Before that, I just knew how to solve a cube in the most basic manner since my brother knew how to solve it.”
Her main forte is solving the Rubik’s cube with full dedication. She has won 2 gold, 1 silver, and 3 bronze medals until now. “I am also at the 4th position in the world female feet cubers and 7th place in Indian feet cubers (general category). I also recently won Red Bull Rubik’s Cube National Finals in the speedcubing (female) category and I am excited to travel to Moscow to represent our country at the Red Bull Rubik’s Cube World Cup,” she says.
They will be traveling to Moscow to represent India in the World Championship this November. “If speedcubing is to become a major sport in a few years, I’d definitely love to be a part of teaching people and organising competitions,” concludes Vijay Kishore.
