Lily Shanagher
A six-year-old girl has set a new world record for the fastest solving of a Rubik’s Cube.
Lian Yunzhi, from China, broke the women’s world record for the 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube twice in three days at competitions in Wuhan and Guangzhou provinces.
Solving the cube five times, she first averaged a time of 4.52 seconds per cube, and then 4.27 seconds, becoming the only female “cuber” in the world to have an average time under 4.5 seconds.
Yunzhi, from Chengdu in Sichuan province, has learnt more than 1300 cube algorithms, spending between two and three hours practising on the cube per day in the past year.
Footage shows the young girl solving the cube at a rapid pace before proudly holding up her trophy. In another, she is surrounded by schoolmates as she solves the cube at speed.
Yunzhi was also filmed practising solving the cube at home with her parents, while they also showed her trophies lined up on a shelf to Red Star News.
Her mother, Lin Yangxi, told Chinese media that she had been introduced to the Rubik’s Cube after attending an extracurricular class alongside dance and music lessons.
According to the World Cube Association, she has taken part in 33 competitions across China and has 569 official solves. Her single record for a 3x3x3 cube is 3.54 seconds, and 2.15 seconds for a 2x2x2 cube.
Lin said she had “gradually realised” that cubing was an “excellent activity for fostering a child’s comprehensive abilities” and had shifted her daughter’s focus towards it.
She added: “Solving a Rubik’s Cube improves focus, memory, logical thinking, spatial awareness, and helps develop a healthy mindset toward winning and losing.
“It’s not just about blindly memorising formulas, but using logical reasoning to find optimal solutions.”
The previous record was held by Qixian Cao, a nine-year-old who set an average time of 5.97 seconds in 2023 at the age of six after learning to use the cube at three years old.
She later set a record 4.98-second average at Start of Summer Beijing 2026 in May, becoming seventh in the world overall, according to Speedcuber’s Digest.
The Telegraph, London
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