At a cubing competition in Hanoi over the weekend, Timofei Tarasenko broke the world record for the average time to solve a 7x7x7 Rubik's-style cube, posting a mean of 1 minute 36.80 seconds across three solves, narrowly faster than the 1:36.86 mark Max Park set nearly a year earlier.
Tarasenko's three solves at the Hanoi Big Cubes 2026 event, held September 26-27 and sanctioned by the World Cube Association, came in at 1:38.11, 1:40.67 and 1:31.63; that last solve also stood as a European record for a single 7x7 attempt. The 7x7x7 cube, a 343-piece puzzle roughly the size of a large grapefruit, takes most casual solvers the better part of an hour, if they can finish it at all.
A different route to the record
What set the run apart from past record attempts, according to a recap by Speedcubers Digest, was Tarasenko's use of the Yau method for solving the centers and edges of the giant cube, the first 7x7 world-record average achieved with that particular technique, which had previously trailed other approaches at the top level of competition.
It was Tarasenko's second world record on a big cube this year; he set the 6x6x6 average record at 1:03.63 in Kuala Lumpur earlier in 2026 and has also picked up a sub-minute 6x6 single solve along the way. He separately holds six world records in Megaminx, a twelve-sided cousin of the standard cube, making him one of the sport's more prolific record-setters across multiple puzzle types.
Big-cube events like Hanoi's draw a smaller field than standard 3x3x3 competitions, since practicing on a 7x7 requires both the expensive puzzle itself and hours of repetition to build the muscle memory the larger grid demands. Competitive cubers now turn their attention to whether Tarasenko, or a rival applying his Yau-based method, can push the mean further below the 1:36 mark before the next major big-cube event.
