Dear WCA Community,

We had another successful year of cubing and developing the WCA as an organization in 2019! We would like to take this moment to share the highlights of what we have accomplished this year with all of your help.

WCA competitions were introduced to eight new countries and there were over 27,750 new people who competed officially for the first time. This year, our competitors broke barriers and achieved 61 world records, 205 continental records, and 3,760 national records.

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Dear WCA Community,

The WRC would like to inform you about the versions of the WCA Regulations and Guidelines, which are going into effect January 1, 2020.

You can review all changes in this comparison on GitHub. You can click on “Files changed” to see the complete files of the Regulation and Guidelines, where all changes and additions are marked green and removals are red.

Simplifications

• Clock pins are allowed to be distinguishable. (commit | discussion)
• Fewest Moves: Only the 18 basic moves, <x, y, z> rotations, and wide moves are allowed in solutions (no bracket rotations). (commit | discussion)
• The name for "combined round" has changed to "cutoff round". (commit | discussion)

Accountability

• Required: scramble signatures. Either the scrambler or a scramble checker must certify that the puzzle is scrambled correctly for each attempt. Although competitions must make a full effort to use scramble signatures for all attempts, results cannot be disqualified solely for a missing scramble signature. (commit | commit | discussion)
• Strongly recommended: the WCA Delegate should record a reason for each granted extra (e.g. on the back of the score sheet). (commit)
• Strongly recommended: Organizers should attach O-rings (or equivalent) to all timer buttons to prevent accidental resets. (commit | discussion)

Miscellaneous

• 3x3x3 With Feet will no longer be an official event. (announcement | commit | discussion)
• Fewest Moves solutions are considered public. (commit | discussion)
• Multi-Blind: If a duplicate cube is found and during an attempt, the cube may be re-scrambled using an extra scramble. (commit | discussion)
• Clock stands may be used to place the Clock vertically at the solving station at the beginning of the attempt. (commit | discussion)

Yezhen Han (韩业臻) won the Harbin Open 2019 with an average of 7.69 seconds. Yibo Wang (王奕博) finished second (9.57 seconds) and Jiaming Zhang (张嘉铭) finished third (9.61 seconds).
Full results are on the Cubing China page.

Lukas Shelley won the Shaoxing Open 2019 with an average of 6.92 seconds. Yihan Chen (陈奕涵) finished second (8.35 seconds) and Wong Kin Lok (黃健樂) finished third (8.38 seconds).
Full results are on the Cubing China page.
China records: Xuming Wang (王旭明) 5x5x5 Cube 43.18 seconds (single), Xuming Wang (王旭明) 5x5x5 Cube 50.88 seconds (average).

Weihao Kong (孔维浩) won the Taiyuan Winter 2019 with an average of 7.20 seconds. Yonghua Xie (解永华) finished second (9.06 seconds) and Lianhao Zhu (褚连皓) finished third (9.14 seconds).
Full results are on the Cubing China page.

Yusheng Du (杜宇生) won the Nanchang Winter 2019 with an average of 8.54 seconds. Guojie Wang (王国杰) finished second (8.60 seconds) and Han Wang (王瀚) finished third (9.63 seconds).
Full results are on the Cubing China page.

The WCA Competition Announcement Team (WCAT) is seeking new members to help them with their mission! Applications are open to everyone and community members not currently holding a WCA position are encouraged to apply.

The daily tasks of a WCAT member include:

• Reviewing and announcing competition submissions with accuracy and correctness.

• Handling change requests to competitions.

• Debating and voting with the rest of the Team.

The official rights and duties of the WCAT are documented in WCA Motion 10.2019.1.

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