UKCA End of Year Message 2024
To our wonderful competitors, friends and family...
It's time to look back on a year of competitions!
2024 has seen 1346 new competitors step through the doors at their first UKCA competition, many of whom have already become regulars on the UK cubing circuit. In total, 2787 competitors entered UKCA competitions throughout the year, representing 71 countries and setting a total of 1 World Record (congratulations, Jacob Sherwen Brown!), 19 Continental Records and 205 National Records.
In fact, with 7 Continental and 61 National Records set by UK competitors during 2024, all of the UK's current National Records have now been set since our return from COVID lockdowns! Beyond holding a record 67 competitions in the UK, we also saw the UK take 6 podium places at the European Championships in Pamplona, Spain!
The UK also achieved its first 3x3 solves below 4 seconds with both Jake Brown and Aidan Grainger achieving this with different solutions on the same scramble at Weston-Super-Mare Autumn 2024. Huge congratulations to them both!
The UKCA Team has expanded, bringing on board 4 new Delegates in Ada Cooke, Adam Leyton, Ryan Eckersley and Scott Hunter to bolster our reach in Scotland and North East England. Amidst numerous amazing candidates, we also welcomed 3 new UKCA Staff members in Max Kwok U Sam, Charlie Butler and Eli Jay. You can expect to see them taking on quite a bit of the UKCA's admin tasks during 2025 alongside Jake Brown and Maria Holton.
We also welcomed a new Graphics Designer in Sarah Pieren, who is working along with Ryan Simpson to bring new designs for events like our annual UK Championship. We will also have new merchandise available in 2025 from our store (from a different supplier this time) which we hope you will all love. There might even be something there for the parents amongst you!
We began to use some new cubing venues in Crewe, Newcastle upon Tyne, Chichester, Birmingham, Cheltenham, Leicestershire, Battersea, Bristol and Norwich. Nevins brought us numerous themed competitions in Manchester and Eleanor ran the UK's first evening competitions in Glasgow. What new venues might we see in 2025?
This year's Rubik's UK Championship was a great success and was the 2nd biggest competition in Europe during 2024 (as well as the biggest National Championship in Europe), with James Alonso regaining his crown from 2022. Our Kewbz UK Open comp in the Summer was another landmark event, ultimately seeing Tymon Kolasiński, Feliks Zemdegs and James Alonso battling it out for the top prize. We are already hard at work planning next year's UK Championship. As for UK Open, this will take a break during 2025, but we have something big being planned to take its place. Stay tuned for further details as soon as we can give them!
Looking forward to 2025, we'd really like to maximise opportunities for competing for everyone - making the most of venues by pushing for more rounds, higher progression and even better experiences for those competing. To do this, we need help from our most experienced and dedicated competitors (that includes you). We need more people helping with running, judging, and scrambling. Competitions are sustainable only when people help out at least as much as they compete. Too often lately our competitions have run behind schedule or we've lost opportunities for additional rounds because enough people haven't been volunteering to help. We need that to change next year, and we need you to help to do it.
Thank you everyone for coming to UKCA competitions during 2024. It's genuinely been great seeing or meeting you all and on behalf of everyone involved in the UKCA, we hope you have had a wonderful festive season and look forward to seeing you in the New Year.
- Sam