Most adults can't solve a 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube at all, let alone in a matter of seconds. Six-year-old Lian Yunzhi from Chengdu, China, just shattered the women's world record by averaging an astonishing 4.27 seconds across five official solves.
Think about that for a second. Four seconds. That is less time than it takes to tie a shoe or pour a glass of water.
Breaking Records Twice in Three Days
Speedcubing is brutal on the nerves. Most competitors spend years plateauing by fractions of a second. Lian Yunzhi skipped that memo entirely. Competing at World Cube Association (WCA) certified events, she didn't just break the record—she broke it twice in a single weekend.
First, she posted a 4.52-second average at a competition in Wuhan. Just three days later, at another tournament in Guangzhou, she lowered the bar even further to 4.27 seconds. Her best single solve during that run clocked in at a jaw-dropping 4.02 seconds. This made her the first female speedcuber in history to officially average under 4.5 seconds.
Behind the Seams of Elite Speedcubing
You don't stumble into a world record by accident. Behind those lightning-fast finger tricks lies a grueling training regime. Lian, affectionately nicknamed "Zhizhi," first picked up a cube at age four. What started as a casual extracurricular activity alongside dance and music lessons quickly morphed into an obsession.
Her mother, Lin Yangxi, noted that her daughter has memorized over 1,300 unique solving algorithms. She practices daily for two to three hours. The family even traveled to Shanghai to seek out professional coaching, pushing her mechanics and look-ahead speed to elite competitive tiers.
People often assume speedcubing is just about brute-force memorization. It isn't. At this level, solvers use advanced methods like CFOP (Cross, F2L, OLL, PLL) to predict the next steps while executing current turns. It demands intense spatial awareness and real-time mathematical calculation disguised as hand-eye coordination.
The Mental Shift That Changes Everything
Competitive cubing looks chaotic from the outside. Fingers blur across plastic faces in a flurry of color. Yet the mindset required is entirely clinical.
Lian's mother points out that competitive cubing teaches kids how to handle pressure, manage failure, and develop a healthy relationship with winning and losing. When you drop a solve in four seconds, there is nowhere to hide. You reset, breathe, and step up for the next scramble.
For anyone looking to get into speedcubing, the takeaway is simple. Stop worrying about raw speed on day one. Master the underlying notation, learn the beginner layer-by-layer method, and let muscle memory build naturally over thousands of slow, deliberate solves. Speed is just a byproduct of efficiency.
Watch the leaderboards. Six-year-old Lian Yunzhi has already raised the ceiling for what is possible, and she is just getting started.
