California: Speedcubing legend and Guinness World Records Hall of Famer, Max Park from the USA broke the record for solving the 3x3x3 Rubik's cube in the fastest time at the Pride in Long Beach 2023 event in California on June 11, 2023.
According to the Guinness World Records, the 21-year-old achieved an astonishing time of 3.13 seconds, shaving 0.34 seconds off the previous record, which was set by China's Yusheng Du in 2018. Prior to this, Max's fastest single solve was 3.63 seconds, placing him second behind Yusheng Du's 3.47.
Several videos of Max Park breaking the record surfaced on social media in which his fellow cube mates could be seen cheering for him.
Max holds a multitude of other speedcubing records - in fact, he holds nearly all of them. He holds both the single-solve and average-solve world records for the 4x4x4 cube, 5x5x5 cube, 6x6x6 cube, and 7x7x7 cube, as per the Guinness World Records.
He had also jointly held the 3x3x3 average record along with Tymon Kolasinski (Poland) with a time of 4.86 seconds, until it was broken on 12 March 2023 by 9-year-old Yiheng Wang (China), who achieved a time of 4.69 seconds.
Max is no stranger to breaking records that appear impossible. Veteran cuber Erik Akkersdijk said his timing of 1 minute, 40 seconds to break the 7x7x7 single record was the most amazing thing he had ever seen.
"The record will likely stand for some time," Erik said. He was wrong though - Max went on to smash it in 2022 with a time of 1 minute 35 seconds, according to the Guinness World Records.
Diagnosed with autism, Max's parents, Schawn and Miki, said that cubing has been "a good therapy" for him.
"There was a time when Max couldn't even open water bottles, but he showed interest in solving Rubik's Cubes," they said.