DanH's WC 2003 Experience!

For me it wasn't just the Rubik's Games World Championships, but an amazing opportunity to meet all the people I have followed and admired, and to put faces to the names of people I had only previously known on the Internet. Besides the competition, it was an awesome experience to be able to cube with such wonderful people who shared my "passion".

Pictures from my WC2003 trip can be found here, I decided to focus on the backdrop of the beautiful city of Toronto. Many of the other cubers are setting up galleries with pictures from the actual event itself, and I have provided links to as many as I can find at the bottom of my picture gallery page.

August 21st

August 22nd

Another amazing day. In the afternoon I have the opportunity to travel to downtown Toronto with Jason Hildebrand, Keith Sauer, and Frank Morris. After watching Andy Camann do his radio interview by the waterfront, we do the usual touristy things such as travelling to the top of the CN tower!
Back to the hotel, and Frank and I relax in the pool, and perform some underwater solving. The day is capped off by another fantastic meeting in a specially reserved hotel room, and this time over 60 competitors turned up. There are too many people to name here, but I had a superb time meeting you all!

August 23rd

The first day of the championships. Frank and I got a lift with Chris Hardwick, and we arrived at the venue an hour early, to get a good chance of seeing everything before many of the other competitors arrived to block the view :P Registration followed, and I met Dan Gosbee, chief organiser of the whole event. There was the opportunity to re-sticker our cubes, and also test the timer pads in situ; it was strange to think that in a few hours time we would be performing on these pads for real in front of many many other competitors! Due to the 5x5x5 qualification starting an hour or so late, it was unfortunate that the 3x3x3 qualification was split across the two days, rather than having all competitors perform on the first day. For most of the day I had felt absolutely no nerves, I was having a great time introducing myself and meeting everyone who I knew and admired, having pictures taken and signing autographs (what a celebrity! ;) ) but when the time came for me to perform my qualification solves it was a different story. As soon as I stepped up on stage, I could feel my hands shaking, and stomach churning as I could see all eyes were focussing on me. The fact that I knew I could easily qualify (I set my best time of 18.02 s whilst practicing on the timers in the morning) only made things worse for me. If I knew I could qualify, then everyone else would surely expect me to put in a good time, and these thoughts only served to make me even more nervous.
My first solve, inspection time roughly 14s, and I laid the cube back down in position on the timer pad. The instant it was covered up I had totally forgotten the cross. 3, 2, 1, GO! Ok so cross done, solving the first F2L pair, and "POP" out comes a piece. I am disappointed to have used my pop already, but also slightly relieved, because I knew I had another chance and this time I would use the inspection time better to really remember that cross. But again and again, I kept forgetting, losing concentration, I couldn't see the pairs, it was awful! The cube was conspiring against me, and served up what I thought were the worst LL cases everytime :-S But the words of encouragement from Dan Knights and the rest of my new-found friends really helped. My best time overall was a slightly disappointing 27.16s, and for a while I felt quite dejected as I considered the fact that with that time I might not even qualify to the final 32. Still, everyone rallied round and consoled me, by the end of the day I felt quite cheery as I tucked into my McDonalds (thanks to Heath Litton and his dad for the ride!).

August 24th

The final day of the championships. After catching a lift with Jon Morris and his wife Jean, in which Jon took the opportunity to make the wrong turning to explore the local golf course, we arrived at the venue and went through to the main auditorium where the finals would be held. It was a great setting, and although there were some initial problems with the lighting, Dan Gosbee and Ron van Bruchem did their best to iron out these difficulties with the introduction of some bright lights behind the stage, as well as in front. The rest of the 3x3x3 qualification ensued, with some great times being set in front of the crowd and TV cameras. I was surprised yet delighted to hear that my time of 27.16s had been enough to qualify in 28th place! The atmosphere was amazing, meeting yet more cubists, exchanging tips and tricks, and perfecting my impression of Dan Gosbee and Chris Hardwick's one-handed solving technique. I even made a last minute entry into the Pyraminx category, to try and get a feel of what it was like up on the stage with the crowd and the lights before I had to perform my semi-final solves. I was pleased with my official time of 35.02s, especially since I was only a few seconds behind eventual triple world champion Jaap! But there was no feeling like the emotions I experienced when it was at last my time to get up on stage and solve the cube in front of everyone, in my attempt to progress through to the finals.
All the cameras seemed to focus in on me, and as I was waiting for my cube to be scrambled I could see that I was the main focus of attention, being projected up onto the huge screen behind me. I made a simple request, one which later I'm sorry to say was completely ignored by the media. I simply asked that for one solve out of the three, there would be no cameras focussing on me, so there would be less pressure on me and I would feel less nervous. Such a shame they decided that the wishes of a competitor were not important enough to be taken into consideration. However despite the cameras and the nerves I was suffering from, I managed to set a time of 26.31s, although not my best, still better than my qualification time, and easily enough to ensure my status as the official No.1 in the UK :D The second time I solved, the bottom layer became misaligned as I put the cube down, and so a rescramble was ordered... however it did me no good because I messed up completely on the Orientation step and decided not to finish. The fourth cube was also ordered to be rescrambled, as I corrected the Last Layer which was ever so slightly misaligned before Dan Gosbee had a chance to inspect it. My fifth and final cube was timed at 30.18s, so it was my time of 26.31s which eventually placed me officially as 29th in the world. I stayed until the end of course, and cheered on Ron and the other finalists, and it was Dan Knights who eventually triumphed with nerves of steel.
In the evening there was a buffet, which for a lot of people was the final chance to have photos taken with other cubers and have momentos signed, and I was very sad to have to say goodbye to little Wiktoria, who was such a sweet girl. David Wesley and I clubbed together and bought her a gift which we signed, as a memory of her experiences at the World Championships. The cubing and chatter lasted well into the night, and it was very hard to tear myself away and go to bed!

August 25th and August 26th