Author: Hannah Minas
For the last qualification competition of the Swisscubing Cup 2019, cube friends from more than 10 countries found their way to the old town of Schaffhausen. With the special events MultiBLD and Clock, some hoped to make it into the Top 12 or to maintain their place in it.
On Saturday, the competition started with a bang. Already in the first round, the first Swiss national record was set – Skewb single NR: 1.68 s! After his first Swiss Champion title, Dominik Fürer also gets his first NR this year! Congratulations!
The favorites convinced in the first two multi-blind attempts. Viktor Zenk (21/23 solved dice) led ahead of Oleg Gritsenko (14/15). Valentin Lanz (10/11) followed ahead of NR-holder Tobias Peter (7/8). With another attempt on Sunday, the places were not distributed yet, but besides Oleg and Tobias, Valentin was now qualified for the final as well.
After the pasta fun provided by the hotel, the finals on Saturday punctually began with Clock. Tobias was the most consistent and won with an average of 8.21 seconds. Co-favorite Miklós Mohos, who had set a Hungarian record in the first round, screwed up his average with the last attempt (7, DNF, 9, 7, 12) and suddenly had to fear for a spot on the podium. Viktor and Hannah Minas had a neck-on-neck race like in the previous round. In the end, Hannah was faster (9.21), but Viktor (9.53) could also be happy as he finished third ahead of Miklós (9.78).
In Pyraminx, favourite Linus Buck (3.71) won ahead of the surprising Daniel Grabski (3.90). Tobias Peter (4.38) finished third ahead of Yannic Waser and Sophia Schmoll (both 4.64).
In Skewb, as alwasy, the victory was decided between Dominik and Yannic. As in the first round, Yannic (4.50) beat Dominik (4.83), who had the better single. A second slower, Tobias (5.86) followed in third place, just ahead of Hannah (5.96) and Sandro Mattenberger (6.11).
In the 3×3 blind final, the usual two suspects in blind events were in front again. Valentin (42.33) edged out Oleg (44.79). Third place went to Viktor (1:02.21).
The final in 5×5 was decided with the last solve. Thanks to a counting time of less than one minute, Tobias (1:05.23) won ahead of Fabian Löhle (1:09.15) and Leon Schmidtchen (1:10.03).
In the last attempt in Multiblind on Sunday, nobody managed to break the phalanx of the leaders. Viktor (21/23), Oleg (14/15) and Valentin (10/11) had the mnemonics under control best. Behind them, Luca Rizzi (8/9) followed in fourth place, after overtaking Tobias in the last attempt. With this, Luca also secured his spot in the top 12 of the Swisscubing Cup rankings.
With over a second lead, the victory in the fastest event of the competition went very convincingly to Linus Buck (2.03). The podium was completed by Tobias (3.13) and Luca (3.28). Tobias (14.80) won the one-handed solving just ahead of Patrick Hetco (14.95). With some distance, Leon (18.05) led the chasing field.
In the end, the most bitter events from the Swiss point of view followed. In 4×4, there was a German triple victory (Leon 32.07, Patrick 34.80, Finn Ickler 35.31) and in 3×3, our northern neighbors even occupied the first four places. Leon (8.63) won just ahead of Patrick (8.84), Linus (9.84) and Finn (10.16). As best Swiss, Tobias (10.62) finished behind Dominic Lumsden (10.57) in 6th place.
All in all, a varied weekend in the Munot city. The clear winner of the qualification is Tobias with 896 points. Reto Bubendorf (295), Alessio Giuliano (293.5), Oleg Gritsenko (253), Hannah Minas (251), Fabian Löhle (236), Ben Zwicky (216), Luca Rizzi (210.5), Dominik Fürer (205) and Valentin Lanz (197) follow within 100 points. Around 50 points behind, János Bereczki and Juliette Sébastien get the remaining two finalist spots, by collecting enough points on a single competition (SCIII).
Overall ranking: http://www.cubegrass.appspot.com/swisscubingcup/2019
The qualifying points will be reset to zero in the final on 7th/8th December in Hünenberg and will be redistributed in one round per event during the course of the final. All information about the exact procedure can be found here: https://swisscubing.ch/swisscubing-cup-2019/
Even if only the 12 finalists can win prizes, everyone can participate in the final. We would be happy to meet many of you at the Swisscubing Cup Final!
Next competitions in Switzerland:
9/10 November – Xlingen Open https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/competitions/XlingenOpen2019
7/8 December – Swisscubing Cup Final https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/competitions/SwisscubingCupFinal2019