Making Rubik's world Championships more like the Olympics?

[OLLiver]

So this is an idea I have been toying with and have decided to post it here to trigger discussion.

Basically idea is as follows:
So we all know the olympics are coming up in Rio.
Right now in Australia (dunno about other countries) olympic trials are being held.
Basically they send the top 3 or so fastest/best people to Rio to represent their country.
So I thought what about applying this to speedcubing?
As Speedcubing grows, this idea seems less and less far fetched to me.

We are already seeing this now (puzzle stores frequently sponsor people to go to competitions now).
But I am not talking about a small local comp. I am talking about the Rubiks world champs. The ultimate competing goal for any serious speedcuber.
Basically my idea is that the puzzleshops of each country could sponsor the top 1/2/3 competitor(s) of of that country and send them to Worlds to compete. This would truly make it the 'world' championships I believe.
what are your thoughts on this?

 

[NewCuber000]

I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with this because cubing competitions are supposed to be for everyone to compete (This is not my opinion, I'm on the fence about this one, and I'm unsure if something like this idea you gave would work.)

However, if this WAS ever to be done, a major problem would be, how would we figure out who the top 3 speedcubers would be to compete in the event? Would we be bias to the 3x3 event? Would we use sum of ranks (Even though that would create some problems of its own, since I know people that maybe have amazing world class times in lets say 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, and 3x3 OH, but they have an awful sum of ranks because they don't compete in events with a lot of people like 5x5 and pyraminx). Also,
people from smaller countries would have an easier time getting in, but I guess that could be fixed by giving countries with bigger cuber populations more cubers that they can send to the championships.

 

[Sajwo]

Basically my idea is that the puzzleshops of each country could sponsor the top 1/2/3 competitor(s) of of that country and send them to Worlds to compete.

Why?

 

[biscuit]

I personally think we need to have some competitions specifically for faster people, but I think jumping straight to this is a bit much. We would need to work our way up to something on a worldwide scale, and as sajwo pointed out, I don't think having a store sponsor you should be a requirement.

I like the idea of having regionals to advance to Nats, but that's only really viable in the US (and you could include Canada making it a NA comp, not just a US comp) and Euro's (which isn't exactly Nats but close enough). I'd love to try doing regionals to advance to Nats, or Nats to advance to Worlds, but I just don't think it makes sense logistically until people can do cubing full time, which I don't see happening anytime soon. Cubing != IRL yet, whereas some E-sports are people's full time jobs.

 

[DGCubes]

It's an interesting idea. Although, logistically, do the stores have the money for that? It would be hard to define who the best ones are; I think ideally we shouldn't be 3x3-biased, because having a variety of sponsored competitors would make it much closer to the Olympics. It seems awesome to be able to witness really good results in every event in one competition, as opposed to just a bunch of good 3x3 results. If we do try to get the best people in every event (say 3 per event per country) that's up to 54 people that the store has to buy plane tickets and hotel rooms for, which aren't cheap. I'd like to see it, but it doesn't seem feasible. Just my two cents.

 

[OLLiver]

Why?

because: olympics

It's an interesting idea. Although, logistically, do the stores have the money for that? It would be hard to define who the best ones are; I think ideally we shouldn't be 3x3-biased, because having a variety of sponsored competitors would make it much closer to the Olympics. It seems awesome to be able to witness really good results in every event in one competition, as opposed to just a bunch of good 3x3 results. If we do try to get the best people in every event (say 3 per event per country) that's up to 54 people that the store has to buy plane tickets and hotel rooms for, which aren't cheap. I'd like to see it, but it doesn't seem feasible. Just my two cents.

Some of them definitely have enough money(maybe not for top 3), top 1 perhaps.

Yes the question of good results across the board vs the best at classic 3x3 is a good one. I really don't know how this would be decided.

I still think this would be cool, to set the world champs apart from smaller comps

 

[RhysC]

I chose 3 of the *biggest* cubing countries and chose the top 3 for average sum of ranks:

Australia: Feliks Zemdegs, Jayden McNeill and William Tao
USA: Evan Liu, John Brechon and lolMitch
Poland: Wojciech Knott, Przemyslaw Kaleta and Wojciech Szatanowski

All these people are pretty fast, except for Mitch of course

 

[OLLiver]

I chose 3 of the *biggest* cubing countries and chose the top 3 for average sum of ranks:

Australia: Feliks Zemdegs, Jayden McNeill and William Tao
USA: Evan Liu, John Brechon and lolMitch
Poland: Wojciech Knott, Przemyslaw Kaleta and Wojciech Szatanowski

All these people are pretty fast, except for Mitch of course

These statistics highlight the biggest problem. hypothetically does one send the fastest people in 3x3 or avg sum of ranks?

 

[Dene]

So many issues, doesn't make any sense to make stores sponsor, horrible idea.

 

[OLLiver]

So many issues, doesn't make any sense to make stores sponsor, horrible idea.

I never said anything about MAKING stores do anything.
I know this obviously has issues. I agree, and would my amend my original idea to suit.

who pays for the olympic contestants who qualify to travel to the olympics then? Can one think of an equivalent for speedcubers?

 

[NewCuber000]

Well I guess for we could have some sort of system where top placers of national competitions would move on to worlds. Some countries don't have national competitions though, or any competitions, so we'd have to allow people from those countries to go to nationals elsewhere. Another problem with this is that most people don't have the money to travel to a national competion AND a world competition if both of them are really far away. Maybe the prize for doing good in the National competion would be funds and the chance to compete in worlds, but then comes that annoying problem again: would we have to be bias to 3x3?

 

[JustinTimeCuber]

If this were to happen, it would have to represent the country's speedcubing base size.
US: 52
China: 35
India: 26
Brazil: 11
Poland: 10
Canada: 9
Philippines: 7
Germany: 6
Indonesia: 6
France: 6
...

 

[YouCubing]

These statistics highlight the biggest problem. hypothetically does one send the fastest people in 3x3 or avg sum of ranks?

Here's an idea: take everyone's WR rankings for average in each event and choose the highest one. for example, the US would have Lucas Etter (2x2), Evan Liu (Clock), Drew Brads (Pyra), Brandon Lin (Square-1) and Vincent Sheu (FMC). For ties (because there's only supposed to be 3 right?) you take their second best WR avg ranking (Lucas - 3, Evan - 18, Drew - 14, Brandon - 157, Vincent - 714). So the top 3 would be Lucas, Evan and Drew. If there's another tie just keep going on to their 3rd best WR avg ranking, 4th best, 5th, 6th, and so on.

 

[adimare]

What problem is this idea trying to solve?

 

[OLLiver]

Well I guess for we could have some sort of system where top placers of national competitions would move on to worlds. Some countries don't have national competitions though, or any competitions, so we'd have to allow people from those countries to go to nationals elsewhere. Another problem with this is that most people don't have the money to travel to a national competion AND a world competition if both of them are really far away. Maybe the prize for doing good in the National competion would be funds and the chance to compete in worlds, but then comes that annoying problem again: would we have to be bias to 3x3?

3x3 bias issue is certainly an annoying one. Yes this would sort of help fast people (who have therefore spent most time practicing) travel to compete in the best competition (worlds imo)

Here's an idea: take everyone's WR rankings for average in each event and choose the highest one. for example, the US would have Lucas Etter (2x2), Evan Liu (Clock), Drew Brads (Pyra), Brandon Lin (Square-1) and Vincent Sheu (FMC). For ties (because there's only supposed to be 3 right?) you take their second best WR avg ranking (Lucas - 3, Evan - 18, Drew - 14, Brandon - 157, Vincent - 714). So the top 3 would be Lucas, Evan and Drew. If there's another tie just keep going on to their 3rd best WR avg ranking, 4th best, 5th, 6th, and so on.

I actually like this idea

What problem is this idea trying to solve?

no problem really, just helping more fast people to worlds.

 

[tx789]

The easiest way is to have qualifying times for event but then you can't have any new computers complete even if they are quick. So everyone who beats qualifying time x completes in that event.

 

[adimare]

no problem really, just helping more fast people to worlds.

By restricting the amount of people that can compete?

 

[OLLiver]

By restricting the amount of people that can compete?

your post makes no sense

 

[adimare]

Instead of an open tournament, you're proposing to only allow a few cubers from each country to compete (unless I misunderstood you). How does that help faster people get to worlds?

 

[OLLiver]

Instead of an open tournament, you're proposing to only allow a few cubers from each country to compete (unless I misunderstood you). How does that help faster people get to worlds?

You misunderstand.
I am proposing that the top competitor(s) of actively cubing countries (aka the fastest people) get sponsored (by who I don't know) to go to the world championships, similar to how the olympics work.
This doesn't stop 'ordinary' cubers competing