A six-year-old girl has set a new Rubik’s Cube world record by solving the puzzle in just four seconds.
Lian Yunzhi, from Chengdu in China’s Sichuan Province, has smashed the women’s 3×3 Rubik’s Cube world record twice in the space of just a few days this month.
The young “speedcuber”, nicknamed “Zhizhi”, achieved the feat at two separate World Cube Association certified events, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
Her extraordinary performances at competitions held in Wuhan and Guangzhou have cemented her place in the record books, making her the sole female competitor ever to post an official average time below 4.5 seconds.
At the first of the two events, held in Wuhan, Lian recorded an average of 4.52 seconds across five solves, claiming the women’s world record for the first time.
Just three days later, she bettered her own mark at a competition in Guangzhou, bringing her average down to 4.27 seconds.
That second result made her the only woman in the history to have achieved an official average beneath the 4.5-second barrier.
Footage captured the youngster, sporting a red gingham bow, deftly manipulating the cube before placing it down, clapping and punching the air in celebration.
Lian Yunzhi, from Chengdu in China’s Sichuan Province solved the puzzle in an average of just 4.27 seconds
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The girl was first introduced to the puzzle cube after her mother enrolled her in a class, one of several extracurricular pursuits that also included dance and music lessons, according to local media reports.
Her mother, Lin Yangxi, told Chengdu’s Red Star News that she “gradually realised” cubing was “an excellent activity for fostering a child’s comprehensive abilities” and decided to make it the primary focus.
Photographs showed a shelf laden with trophies at the family home, testament to the girl’s rapid rise through the competitive ranks since taking up the discipline.
Ms Yangxi said her daughter has committed to practising between two and three hours every day over the past year, a regime that has seen her memorise upwards of 1,300 solving algorithms.
She broke the record not once, but twice
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REUTERS
“Solving a Rubik’s Cube improves focus, memory, logical thinking, spatial awareness, and helps develop a healthy mindset toward winning and losing,” she told the outlet.
She emphasised that the skill went beyond rote learning: “It’s not just about blindly memorising formulas, but using logical reasoning to find optimal solutions.”
At just six years old, Lian’s mastery of the cube suggests her competitive career may only be getting started.
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