WRC decision regarding an incident at Longhorn Cube Day 2017

Announced by Laura Ohrndorf on

Dear WCA Community,

At Longhorn Cube Day 2017 a competitor [under 18 years old] used an invalid puzzle with an overlay sticker during the third round of 3x3x3 Blindfolded. This incident has generated special attention as it affects a single result of 17.35 seconds, which would be the new 3x3x3 Blindfolded World Record.

The WCA Regulations require that puzzles must be approved by a WCA Delegate. Unfortunately, this was not done before the round, so the delegates of the competition decided to grant the competitor provisional extra attempts for this round. The WRC has now decided that the provisional extra attempts should replace the original attempts. The results will be changed from DNF, DNF, 17.35 to 29.40, 21.78, DNF.

We are very sorry for the competitor. However, we would like to remind that the WCA Regulations require every competitor to be familiar with the Regulations and to only provide puzzles that comply with all Regulations. As the Regulations were broken in the original attempts and there are valid replacement attempts, we believe this is the correct decision. This decision is also consistent with several precedents at other competitions and it would be unfair to treat this incident differently only because it involves a potential record-breaking result.

Kind regards,

Laura Ohrndorf, on behalf of the WCA Regulations Committee (WRC)