Ron van Bruchem
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Ron van Bruchem is a Dutch speedcuber. He was a co-founder and board member of the WCA in 2004, stepping down from the position in 2018. He was the main organizer for major European competitions, including the European Championships, and of many competitions in the Netherlands and Germany. He created Speedcubing.com, widely considered the first hub website for speedcubing, in July 2000.
He popularized the ZB method with Zbigniew Zborowski around 2002. He has set world records in 2x2, 3x3, and 5x5 single.
History
Ron van Bruchem began cubing at the age of 13 in 1980. He was in hospital for 8 weeks and a friend's mother brought him a Rubik's Cube from Czechoslovakia. When the cube came popular in the Netherlands in 1981, he could solve it in around 35 seconds. He stopped cubing in 1983 after the cube craze, but in December 1999 he got the "Rubik's Games" computer game. This brought him in contact online with other cubers such as Chris Hardwick and Ton Dennenbroek. He created Speedcubing.com in 2000 as a hub site for speedcubing. After an aborted attempt to create a world championship in December 2001, Dan Gosbee stepped in to help, and staged the World Rubik's Games Championship 2003 in Canada. The following year Ron co-founded the World Cube Association with Tyson Mao, organising and coordinating competitions around the world, and helping to set-up national and local organisations.
He has competed in many tournaments, and has held the world record single for the 5x5 Cube (Belgian Open 2006), 2x2 Cube (UK Open 2007), and 3x3 Rubik's Cube (Dutch Championship 2007).
He works as a corporate IT strategist for a banking group (Rabobank).
Fun facts
- Ron is credited with inventing the word "speedcubing" as the result of needing a website name in 2000 (the two-word phrase "speed cubing" itself dates from 1981 [1]).
- His wedding was Rubik's Cube themed, including a six-colored cube cake that took four days to make.[2]
- Ron likes to cube a lot on the toilet and sometimes a piece pops into the toilet.[3]
Achievements
| Continental Titles | ||
| Preceded by Lars Vandenbergh 2004 |
5x5 Speedsolve European Champion 2006 |
Succeeded by Erik Akkersdijk 2008 |
See also
External links
- Speedcubing.com
- Ron van Bruchem, Wikipedia article
- Interview with Ron van Bruchem, Speedsolving.com
- Interview with Ron van Bruchem, Cubing Dare
