WRC Investigation - Vietnamese Competitions Results Removal

Announced by Ekaterina Kaneva on

Dear WCA Community,

The WCA Regulations Committee (WRC) has recently concluded an investigation into WCA competitions in Vietnam, resulting in the removal of many results from competitions between the years of 2013 and 2022.

The WRC has found that at many of these competitions, score sheets were used as cube covers, which violates regulation A2c1 and guideline A2c1+. These small pieces of paper do not do a sufficient job covering the cube, allowing scrambled puzzles to be seen before competitors' attempts. Scramble secrecy is something that is treated very seriously and violations of it cannot be ignored.

Additionally, there is a small number of competitions that used Yuxin timers, which were not approved timers as per 8a7. Under current regulations, this is regulation 7f1a. Due to inconsistencies with these timers, the results from competitions that used them must be removed.

This is not the first time that results have been removed for these issues. Results have been removed for scoresheets being used as covers here as well as at Hanoi Open 2022. Results have been removed for using Yuxin timers at Vancouver Island 2019. While these issues are not the fault of the competitor, they were not achieved in accordance with the WCA Regulations and must be removed.

As a result of this investigation, results from 19 competitions in Vietnam were affected, including 9 competitions that no longer have any results. Over 900 competitors were affected, with more than 18,000 attempts removed in total, and many competitors had their WCA ID reassigned or lost due to their missing results. We completely empathize with the frustration that this causes, but our regulations are carefully written such that competitors can’t obtain any unfair advantages. If these aren’t followed, then we cannot guarantee the integrity of our results.

Of course, this decision impacts a significant number of solves that might be otherwise valid. However, given the number of clear violations in the rest of these rounds, we can not confidently accept these results.

We want to take this opportunity to remind everyone the importance of understanding the Regulations. If you have any questions about the Regulations, please contact either your WCA Delegate or the WCA Regulations Committee at regulations@worldcubeassociation.org.

A full report for this investigation can be found here, and the incident log entry can be found here.