Santo Domingo Winter 2026 (Day 2/2)

Read Part 1 here!

Today was the second day of Santo Domingo Winter 2026, and it went way better than yesterday!

First of all, I want to correct a mistake that I made on the Day 1 post. I said that today's only events would be 3x3 and 2x2, but in reality 3x3 one-handed was today as well, which I did not compete in. Regardless, I competed in 3x3 and 2x2 today, and made it to Round 2 for both!

First was 3x3, which went quite decently! All of my solves were in different seconds which is always fun: (16.73), 18.78, (20.91), 17.10, and 19.00. This resulted in a 18.29 average, which is pretty decent.

Then was the first round of 2x2, which was not my best but was good enough to reach Round 2 at least. I started with a mid 7.37, then had three pretty decent solves (5.98, 6.79, and 5.66), but ended with a bad 9.14 since I messed up on the final step. Although it wasn't the best, it was a 6.71 that did get me to the second round.

For Round 2 of 3x3 I did quite a bit better! It did not start well, with a bad 23.45, but I remained decent with 17.44, 15.39, 17.13, and 18.01, which resulted in a 17.53 average, my third best yet in competition! I am a bit sad I only cracked sub-16 once this competition, but I won't complain.

Lastly was Round 2 of 2x2, which went the best out of anything in the competition for me! My times only got better and better every solve, starting with a mid 7.57, but then a 5.44, a 4.47, a fantastic 3.91 (my first sub-4 in competition since Summer 2024), but then I capped it off with a 2.81! This was my first ever sub-3 in a competition, and beats my previous personal record of 3.02 by over a fifth of a second!

The final average was 4.61, which was also my first ever official sub-5 on 2x2, and better than my previous PR of 5.57 by almost an entire second!

And that was the competition! Aside from cubing and talking to people, I also helped set up, was in the stand of the shop for a while, and also started sketching out some super secret ideas of the logo for the next competition.

Speaking of, yesterday I mentioned how well the pins of the competition ended up, but today we finally got to see the medals, which are 3D printed (similar to Summer 2025's) and feature my design! I absolutely adore how these look, and I didn't even consider that the design would make such good medals. I absolutely adore them.

And that was it! My twelfth official competition and an absolute delight as always.

I've always said that my favourite part of competitions isn't just that I get to do a hobby that I really enjoy, but also that I get to spend time with people I like and be able to contribute to the community in a way. They both definitely apply to this one, but now more than ever that last one, as I feel like I have made a particularly special contribution this time.

P.S. I am a bit sad that we didn't take a proper group picture this time, the header image was taken at the end during the raffle and wasn't organized. Oh well.