Santo Domingo Summer 2026 (Day 2/2)
Read Part 1 here!
Today is the second day of my thirteenth cubing competition! There isn't that much ado, but I do want to bring up that I did stretch my hand quite weirdly while helping set up, so it hurt a little bit throughout the whole day (still does a bit). Despite my subpar results (as you'll see) I don't think it affected me much, but still ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
As usual, the first event of the day was Round 1 of 3x3, where I got a pretty inconsistent average, which is quite consistent for me. I got a 14.00, 17.40, 19.55, a not-that-good 21.45, but then I dropped back down to a good 14.27. This resulted in a 17.07 average, which isn't a 16, but it is my third best in competition and it got me into Round 2, so I am still quite happy with it!
For some reason — probably all the new competitors — the first round of 3x3 usually takes much longer than planned, and this time it went on for so long that it was the only event we did before lunch.
Afterwards we had Round 1 of 2x2, and I don't know what it was, maybe my hand or just me being tired, but I did terribly. This was by far my worst average in the last four years, a 7.03, and I didn't make it to Round 2. The solves were a 7.28, 6.49, (5.26), (11.05), and 7.32. Whatever, I guess they can't all be winners.
Round 2 of 3x3 unfortunately wasn't that good either, but definitely not as catastrophic as 2x2… except for that first solve where I messed up an A perm and got a 36… and that 20.09 wasn't that good either. But the rest were fine! My last three solves were a 17.90, 15.11, and 17.40, and it resulted in a 18.46 ao5, which isn't the best, but I've had worse.
A bit of a disappointing end to my performances, but it's okay! Like I said, not all of them can be winners, and that applies to competitions too.
In general this was a pretty average competition for me, both in performance and the fact that I wasn't as involved as I would've hoped, but I still really enjoyed it! I tried a lot of new things for this one, some of which payed off, and in the end even an average competition is always a great weekend for me. Also winning a medal of any sort, no matter what, is definitely not average for me.
As always I'm happy I got to see my friends again, meet people, contribute to the community, and improve some of my performances. I'm very excited for the next one!
