SEA Games 2025: Speedy Daryl Tan chasing records on the track and Rubik’s Cube

SINGAPORE – The seconds, minutes and hours leading up to the start of a race can make or break runners.

To deal with the nerves and anxiety, some put on their headphones, others watch videos on their phones or talk to their coaches.

Calm, for Singapore sprinter Daryl Tan, comes from fiddling with a Rubik’s Cube. Seven seconds are how long it takes for him to solve the puzzle – his record for a regular 3x3 cube – and tame his nerves, so his focus can be on showcasing his speed on the track.

It is no mere party trick, though. His speedcubing skill has brought him several Guinness World Records – 18 of them since 2020 – and he currently holds nine.

More importantly, the cubes – he has at least 100 of them in different variations – bring him joy. His passion for the activity has also led him to his SEA Games debut in Thailand in December, when the 23-year-old runner will compete in the men’s 4x100m relay.

“Cubing taught me to separate my self-worth from my results,” said Tan.

“I used to really struggle with bad results on the track. Then I started to look at athletics similarly to how I view cubing, where I really focus on the fun aspects. I told myself to just enjoy the process, enjoy the progress like I do when I am cubing and when my mindset shifted, many things changed.”

In January 2024, he clocked 10.77 seconds to win the men’s 100m at the Institute-Varsity-Polytechnic (IVP) Games track and field championships. His time caught the attention of Singapore Athletics and earned the Singapore Institute of Technology student a spot on the national team – a much-cherished milestone after several years of obscurity.

Off the track, Tan’s Rubik’s Cube journey began in Primary 6 when a classmate showed him how to solve one. Competitive by nature, Tan taught himself by watching YouTube videos and within two weeks, he had matched his friend’s 50-second timing. About three years later in 2015, he entered his first competition and broke national records.

He would spend several hours of his day cubing, learning hundreds of algorithms, mastering variations from 2x2 to 7x7 cubes, solving them one-handed and with differently shaped puzzles.

The master of the cube has since captured 18 Guinness World Records. They include: the fastest time to solve a 3x3 Rubik’s cube upside down (10.81sec), fastest time to solve two 3x3 Rubik’s cubes simultaneously while suspended upside down (56.61sec), fastest 100m while solving a 3x3 Rubik’s cube (13.61sec), most 3x3 Rubik’s cubes solved underwater (16 cubes) and fastest time to solve a 3x3 Rubik’s cube while controlling a table tennis ball (15.84sec).

Some of his record attempts have even been featured on TV shows overseas.

While his cubing journey has brought success, life on track has not been as smooth sailing.

His athletics journey began in St Andrew’s School (Secondary), not as a sprinter but as a cross-country runner.

“I didn’t enjoy it because it was, to me, torture,” he recalled, laughing.

After switching to the 100m and 200m, he spent years “getting beaten by other people” at the National School Games.

But a desire to improve kept him going, as Tan noted that he was “stubborn enough to continue the sport, even though I wasn’t very good at it”.

The breakthrough came in 2019, when he joined coach Benber Yu, who also trains the 100m and 200m national record holder Marc Louis. Tan clocked a new personal best about three weeks after working with Yu.

The secret, he said, was training alongside some of Singapore’s best sprinters.

“Before that, I was always training alone but to suddenly have Marc training next to you and pushing you every training, it escalated things for me,” said Tan, who won the IVP 100m gold in January.

Now, the runner will get his first taste of the SEA Games in the 4x100m relay, where he is eyeing history as they aim to rewrite the 10-year-old national mark of 39.24sec.

He is one of six runners shortlisted for the relay, including Louis, Tate Tan, Xander Ho, Yan Teo and Mark Lee.

Tan believes the team can achieve their goal if they execute their best runs and ensure clean baton exchanges.

For the speedcuber, who boasts 18 Guinness World Records, a relay mark would certainly bring much more joy.

Tan said: “I have always been the one watching SEA Games, and suddenly to be the one that is actually running, then it’s quite surreal. I have waited nine years to get here and to do it alongside Marc and my teammates would be such a wonderful feeling, maybe the best I’ve felt.”