Made this eligible for sweepstakes!

This is all based on like an hour of research having no subject knowledge, so take it with every grain of salt:

In retrospect, the 3.47 (and now the 3.13) seem to be have been a freakish scores. I don't know if they were just novel interpretation of scrambles combined with extreme ability, rather than ability itself (consider the single other outlier of 3.44, the next lowest after those 3 is 3.85). I think it's notable that Park holds the individual record in every non 2x2 cube, possibly indicating that he uniquely is suited to notice those novel interpretations. Yiheng Wang seems to be the most likely (I'd argue probably close to the only competitor) to break it if Park himself doesn't (as it looks like he is clearly the better 3x3 than Park). Other than those two, I don't know if anybody else has the ability to clear a score as low as 3.13.

So by the end of the year the ways of it breaking are probably mostly in Park needing an anomalous scramble (and somehow find a way to beat the 3.13 with it), or Wang needs to show he can notice an anomalous scramble (but would be more likely to beat the 3.13). I think they will need to be lucky for either to happen (this is probably why the WR stood for so long).

I haven't checked the denominator for if the amount of events/participants is significantly increasing to a level that creates inevitability, but the consistency of Park and Wang makes it seem to me nobody is going to pass their ability by end of year.

26% seems too high for this, so I'm going to be putting a good amount into NO

@XavierW did you look at unofficial records? I think there's a large number of people with personal bests under the current WR it's just a matter of luck if they can do it in a tournament.

https://youtube.com/shorts/nGjxNbSdxyg?si=epveDFbAlMetD3R9

@Tater definitely have not haha. still seems weird the official distribution of scores on record only has the 3.13, 3.44, 3.47 before (3.85+). also I totally thought this was the end of 2023, not 2024 for some reason

@XavierW Sorting by results instead of rankings is better I think.

https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/rankings/333/single?show=100+results

Rankings | World Cube Association

The World Cube Association governs competitions for mechanical puzzles that are operated by twisting groups of pieces, commonly known as 'twisty puzzles'. The most famous of these puzzles is the Rubik's Cube, invented by professor Rubik from Hungary. A selection of these puzzles are chosen as official events of the WCA.

I think this is more likely than the record history would suggest. I wouldn't be surprised if it was broken multiple times before the end of 2024. The current field of top cubers seem very strong. It could also end up being the case that we get lots of times very close to the current record but still off by 1-2 tenths.