Arnhem turns Rubik’s Cube into a serious sport, gloves and all

If you ever doubted that patience can be turned into a competitive advantage, Arnhem currently offers a tidy rebuttal. The European Speedcubing Championship has brought more than 1,000 competitors from 53 countries to Sportcentrum Valkenhuizen, where the humble Rubik’s Cube is being treated with the seriousness usually reserved for far grander pursuits.

The event runs until 19 July and follows World Cube Association rules, which may sound dry until one learns what those rules cover. Traditional speed solves are only part of the programme. Competitors are also tackling one-handed attempts, blindfolded challenges and novelty tasks that include solving cubes while wearing oven gloves. There is a certain dignity in this absurdity. Sport, after all, has always loved a spectacle, even when the spectacle is a person trying to outwit coloured plastic under time pressure.

The championship’s appeal lies not only in the mechanics of the puzzle but in the international crowd it draws. According to Kyle Renatus, who competes and also works on communications for the World Cube Association, the close-knit nature of the community remains one of the sport’s main attractions. That is perhaps the most telling detail here: behind the speed and the rankings, this is still a discipline built on shared obsession, volunteers and a surprising amount of specialised equipment.

Those volunteers do the unglamorous work before each round, scrambling the cubes and placing them into individual boxes for the competitors. Around them, stalls sell lubricants meant to keep the puzzles moving as smoothly as possible. Even in a pastime built on dexterity and memory, there is room for commerce. Someone, inevitably, has found a way to sell the oil that makes the machine run.

Arnhem’s championship also says something about how niche sports survive and even thrive. They do so by combining strict rules with enough eccentricity to keep outsiders watching. The World Cube Association provides the structure; the oven gloves provide the hook. Between those two poles, a surprisingly large international event has taken shape.

For the Netherlands, the setting is fitting enough: orderly, organised and just a little obsessed with process. In that sense, the championship is almost a national portrait, only with more scrambling and fewer excuses. By 19 July, the cubes will be solved, scrambled again and packed away. The community, predictably, will move on to the next contest, because there is always another way to make a puzzle faster.

Written by Sandy van Dongen sandy.vandongen@alpineweekly.com