World Championship 2015 - São Paulo, Brazil - July 17-19, 2015

[kcl]

I should probably be more clear. I would absolutely love to attend, and I think it's great that South America gets a world championship. I simply don't have the funds to do so.

 

[megaminxwin]

Making it to worlds is tough, and can take a lot of work. 2011 worlds was the hardest one for me to attend. Starting near the end of the year in 2010 I made some major life changes (forbore my college loans for 12 months to save that monthly payment every month towards going to worlds), I limited myself to $20 per 2 week pay period for entertainment/discretionary expenses. I even debated selling one of my saxophones at one point when it looked like I would be close on finances.

Going to worlds when it's far away can't always be done, but if it means a lot for you to go then a lot of planning and frugality can make it possible.

It's cool, don't worry. I don't even have a source of income so there's no way that it could be done anyway. Have fun!

 

[XTowncuber]

I should probably be more clear. I would absolutely love to attend, and I think it's great that South America gets a world championship. I simply don't have the funds to do so.

Yeah, this. Didn't mean to come across as whiny in my original post. idk what I was expecting though

 

[uyneb2000]

Yeah, this. Didn't mean to come across as whiny in my original post. idk what I was expecting though

Same. I just simply think it's too far for my family to go to. I really would love, but I most likely can't.

 

[Ninja Storm]

I think it's time to start looking into hitchhiking...

 

[AlexMaass]

I think it's time to start looking into hitchhiking...

or we could get an aircraft carrier or something and like pick people up around the country lol.

 

[qqwref]

No. I picked the last 3 because that's when he's been competitively active (since 2011). I could add the Germany one if you really want, and ask the same question... I don't really see how it looks like I left out Germany on purpose.

The point is that the Italy-Germany distance is extremely relevant to your point. The world has a lot of continents and the last 3 worlds plus 2015 are in 4 different continents - Europe, US, Asia, South America. You then chose a country in Europe and looked at the three of those four that are not Europe and pointed out how far they were away from this European country. Well, duh! That's what happens when the world has more than three continents! Someone is gonna get left out at least three times in a row.

(And to everyone complaining about the location, qqwref for example, please suggest a better one. Outside of North America..)

When I joined this topic I just thought Brazil was a bad decision because there was no good reason to have it there over the other places. But now I am thinking that there is an obvious best place to put the next Worlds: somewhere in Asia, perhaps a city in China, India, or Japan. As mentioned before, they have roughly 1/3 of the best 3x3x3ers, and they have only had one Worlds whereas North America and Europe have had three each.

Also, although many of the "fast solver" live a good distance from South America, all cubers would like the chance to attend Worlds at some point.

All cubers should not attend Worlds! God, can you imagine if 10000+ people showed up with the current state of cubing?!? Let's be real though, the VAST majority of cubers in the WCA database are not particularly serious about competing and may only show up to a handful of competitions in their career, or perhaps even only one (like my brother). This applies to the 2300+ South Americans as much as everyone else.

I don't think World's should be about what's most convenient for such a small group of the community (albeit an important one). Competitions should be about more than just world record holders setting more world records.

Wat. It's not like only top 100 3x3x3ers would be going to Worlds, I just picked that as an easy sample of the most competitive solvers, so of course it's a small group. And yes, competitions *in general* should be more than just top people getting insane times, but this is Worlds we're talking about! Brazil can have 50 competitions a year, if they want, but when you hold a world championship you expect a good chunk of the best people to be able to attend, or else the title of world champion is not meaningful.

 

[Mikel]

I wonder if there will be qualification limits? I really liked how Worlds 2013 did not have any qualification limits, but had reasonable hard and soft cut offs. I would love to travel to Brazil!

 

[Deleted member 19792]

Weren't qualification limits removed in 2013? (Or is that a round. I am confused)


This sounds like a good place to go, but most cases I have had with international travel, it is expensive. Don't complain that you have to spend too much money to go to Worlds because it isn't in your country. I wonder how much people had to spend coming to the U.S last year, or going to to Thailand? For US Nationals, how much did international competitors pay to get there? (Via flight)

Brazil might be underdeveloped but there is a large amount of speedcubers there. Let them have their go. Brazil is a competition country.

 

[TMOY]

Weren't qualification limits removed in 2013? (Or is that a round. I am confused)

Qualification rounds got removed in 2013. Qualification limits are still possible.

No idea of what the Brazilian organizing team will decide, but there seems to be a trend towards removing such limits. Euro 2014 has none either.

 

[tseitsei]

.
Wat. It's not like only top 100 3x3x3ers would be going to Worlds, I just picked that as an easy sample of the most competitive solvers, so of course it's a small group. And yes, competitions *in general* should be more than just top people getting insane times, but this is Worlds we're talking about! Brazil can have 50 competitions a year, if they want, but when you hold a world championship you expect a good chunk of the best people to be able to attend, or else the title of world champion is not meaningful.

This is exactly what I was thinking/trying to say. I agree with this 100%.

As many of the world-class competitors should attend to world championships as possible, otherwise the title WORLD CHAMPION doesn't really mean anything...

 

[SolveThatCube]

This is exactly what I was thinking/trying to say. I agree with this 100%.

As many of the world-class competitors should attend to world championships as possible, otherwise the title WORLD CHAMPION doesn't really mean anything...

As I said earlier, I am pretty sure Feliks is going, the current WORLD CHAMPION. This was on his fb page:

Me and Collin Burns, the winner of US Nationals! Had so much fun this weekend, broke some pbs and records, won some events, and ultimately placed second in 3x3.

Can not wait for worlds in Brazil next year!

 

[LarsN]

As many of the world-class competitors should attend to world championships as possible,...

I can assure you that as many as possible will attend.

If the argument of top100 cubers (3x3x3) should mean anything, then WCA would have to pay travel expences to all of top100 to make sure that the world champion is indeed the world champion. But this is WCA, not FIFA.

EDIT: and speaking of strange WC locations. Look at 2022 FIFA WC!

 

[tseitsei]

I can assure you that as many as possible will attend.

Well obviously this is true.

But my point is that attending would probably be possible for more of those fast people if we organized the competition in some continent ~1/3 of those people live instead of in the continent where ~1% of those people live...
You see the point?
In Europe Asia and NA we have around 30% of the top100 people each and in South America we have 1% of those people...

If the argument of top100 cubers (3x3x3) should mean anything, then WCA would have to pay travel expences to all of top100 to make sure that the world champion is indeed the world champion. But this is WCA, not FIFA.

Obviously this would be the ideal situation but with resources availible not really possible.
But if we can't do the best thing we can do the next best thing which IMO is making Worlds as accessible to as many top tier cubers as possible

 

[Carrot]

Well obviously this is true.

But my point is that attending would probably be possible for more of those fast people if we organized the competition in some continent ~1/3 of those people live instead of in the continent where ~1% of those people live...
You see the point?
In Europe Asia and NA we have around 30% of the top100 people each and in South America we have 1% of those people...



Obviously this would be the ideal situation but with resources availible not really possible.
But if we can't do the best thing we can do the next best thing which IMO is making Worlds as accessible to as many top tier cubers as possible

for comparison, Euro is being held in a country with 0% people in the top 100 ranking for Europe...

 

[tseitsei]

for comparison, Euro is being held in a country with 0% people in the top 100 ranking for Europe...

Yeah but travelling distances/expenses from other countries are SIGNIFICANTLY lower in this case than in brazils case. It's easy/cheap to travel to Denmark from (almost) anywhere from Europe which makes participation easy/possible for most (top tier) people.

 

[LarsN]

But my point is that attending would probably be possible for more of those fast people if we organized the competition in some continent ~1/3 of those people live instead of in the continent where ~1% of those people live...
You see the point?

Yes, I see your point. And by that point alone I think you are right, but I think that more things were considered in making the choice.

Many things need to be considered. I know, I'm part of the Euro2014 orga team. Sao Paulo most likely presented the best possible plan for holding the WC to the WCA.

 

[tseitsei]

Yes, I see your point. And by that point alone I think you are right, but I think that more things were considered in making the choice.

Many things need to be considered. I know, I'm part of the Euro2014 orga team. Sao Paulo most likely presented the best possible plan for holding the WC to the WCA.

Yeah I don't know if there were even other candidates willing to organize worlds next. So I don't say WCA made a bad choice or anything. It just seems very counter-intuitive to me to organize worlds there.

P.S. This years Euro will be my first competition outside Finland and first big comp also. Thanks for organizing it Hopefully I can get an NR or two in the blind events also...

 

[Stefan]

for comparison, Euro is being held in a country with 0% people in the top 100 ranking for Europe...

Hmm... Europe is rather flat and doesn't wrap around like Earth does, so I think it becomes an easy enough 2D-problem to compute the location that minimizes total travel distances for a given group of people. Well, if we had locations of people. Maybe take their country's center point.

Edit: Did a quick search, this looks useful: http://www.geomidpoint.com/methods.html

 

[Carrot]

Hmm... Europe is rather flat and doesn't wrap around like Earth does, so I think it becomes an easy enough 2D-problem to compute the location that minimizes total travel distances for a given group of people. Well, if we had locations of people. Maybe take their country's center point. I don't have time for this, but I'd be interested to see it if someone else did it.

Edit: Did a quick search, this looks useful: http://www.geomidpoint.com/methods.html

Played a bit around with it, Greenland seems to be the winner!