Six-year-old Lian Yunzhi from Chengdu has set a new women’s world record for solving a 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube. She broke the record twice within three days at competitions in Wuhan and Guangzhou, becoming the only female cuber to achieve an average time below 4.5 seconds.

Yunzhi first recorded an average of 4.52 seconds across five solves, then improved it to 4.27 seconds. She has learned more than 1,300 algorithms and practises for two to three hours daily; the World Cube Association records 33 competitions and 569 official solves. Her fastest single 3x3x3 solve is 3.54 seconds, while the previous record-holder, Qixian Cao, achieved a 5.97-second average in 2023.