Yiheng Wang

Wang entered his first WCA competition in September 2019, at age five.^[5] He won his first competition title in January 2021, at age seven.^[6]

On 10 March 2023, at nine years old, Wang set his first 3x3x3 world record average at a competition in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with an average^[a] of 4.69 seconds.^[7][8] The previous record of 4.86 seconds had been held jointly by Max Park and Tymon Kolasiński.^[9] Between March 10, 2023 and January 10, 2026 he set 9 consecutive records in the event, lowering the 3x3x3 average world record from 4.86 (which was jointly held by Max Park and Tymon Kolasiński) to 4.69, 4.48, 4.36, 4.25, 4.09, 4.09 (again), 4.05, 4.03, 3.91, and eventually 3.90.^[10]

In August 2023, Wang came within 0.01 seconds of winning the 2023 WCA World Championship, finishing in second place behind United States' Max Park and just ahead of Poland's Tymon Kolasiński.^[11] Two years later, on July 6, 2025, he became WCA World Champion with a 4.23 second average, finishing ahead of fellow Chinese speedcuber Xuanyi Geng.^[12]

Wang's global 3x3x3 dominance peaked in September 2025 when he held the 28 all-time fastest averages, ranging from 4.31 through to 3.90 seconds.^[13] As of March 7, 2026, he holds 71 of the top 100 3x3x3 averages. He has the 3rd fastest 3x3x3 single, at 3.06 seconds.^[13][2]

In February 2025, Wang broke the 3x3x3 world record single, with a time of 3.08 seconds, although this record would be broken later by Xuanyi Geng.^[14] On 25 May 2025, Wang set a new 3x3x3 world record average of 3.91 seconds, becoming the first person in history to record a sub-4 second average in official competition.^[15]

On 22 June 2024 in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, Wang achieved a world record average of 0.78 seconds on the 2x2x2. The manner in which Wang started the competition-standard StackMat timer drew criticism; frame-by-frame analysis of the solves revealed that Wang had touched or even begun turning the puzzle before lifting his hands off the timer in some of the solves,^[16] both of which constitute individual two-second penalties.^[17] The technique was dubbed "sliding" as it involves sliding the hands forward to greet the puzzle rather than lifting them up, thus temporarily keeping the timer from starting and recording a faster time. Despite possible evidence of regulation violations from frame-by-frame video analysis, however, only full-speed video analysis was considered valid evidence for penalization, due to a decision from 2019.^[18]

On 27 September 2024, the WCA Regulations Committee (WRC), responsible for deciding on such unresolved and uncovered incidents released a joint statement with the WCA Board of Directors on the matter; while the WRC announced that it would now use frame-by-frame analysis in certain cases such as world records, the Board concluded that Wang's solves "could not be conclusively determined to be in violation of the WCA Regulations, policies, and procedures which are in place at the time of the attempt, and cannot be retroactively applied to previous attempts".^[19]

On 11 October 2024, the board publicly returned penalization discretion to the WRC.^[20] On 25 October 2024, the WRC announced Wang's solves would be retroactively penalized, changing the result from 0.78 to 3.47 and thus stripping Wang of sole possession of the world record; his second-best average of 0.92 seconds from the same event is identical to the average set by Zayn Khanani of the United States at New Cumberland County 2024, meaning Wang and Khanani had jointly held the record^[21] until 15 December 2024, when Wang achieved an average of 0.86 seconds.^[4]

On 18 March 2025, Wang's 0.86-second average was penalized following a review by the WRC, which determined that three of the five solves involved sliding. As a result, the 2x2x2 world record average reverted to Wang's 0.88-second time set at Hangzhou Open 2024. However, the WRC stated the poor timer starts appeared to be unintentional in this situation.^[22][23]