4.98 Former Clock Oceanic Record Average

Times: 4.88, 5.22, 4.84, (5.71), (4.71)
1st Place at Abbotsford Begins 2022 Final Round

Thank you to the wonderful Ari for recording and judging this average!!
   / ariissleeping  


Warning: very long spiel about what got me to this point and emotions i guess

To say this comp was an emotional rollercoaster for me is putting it lightly, to finally achieve a record I've been chasing for 2 years only a few hours after what felt like a soul crushing defeat feels completely surreal.

Janurary 2020 had marked me learning how to solve this puzzle on an out-of-the-box LingAo and competing in my first official round where i got a sub-20 average, which was pretty good for me considering i put a few hours at most of practice the entire 3 weeks leading up to that comp. This was also the same round (same group & scrambles, even) as Darby Lee's double OcR with a 5.54 single and 6.27 average, beating the previous average record by about 1.3 seconds. Needless to say I was extremely hyped for Darby in that moment and thought there cant possibly be anyone to think about trying to smash these records the same way he did.
Simply put, I was very wrong

It wasnt until after the first lockdowns hit where i had realised i could become decent at this event. I felt a rapid improvement in my clock average to the point where i was able to average sub 10 with an unmagnetised lingao (which sounds pretty insane to me writing that out). I started practicing on a self magnetised clock after this and month after month of this long year showed no hope of there being a single competition or clock round where i could get to opportunity to prove myself as a rising clock solver. It was during this period where I amazed myself by getting personal bests that were faster than the official records Darby had set at the start of the year.

Then came the announcement of Melbourne Summer 2021. While I had thought setting my expectations to OcR level would bring me to a good performance level when the time came to compete, this competition alone ended up being a catalyst for what was about to become another year's worth of practice. In the hours leading up to the round I began to feel the most nervous I had ever been, and when the time came to submit my clock for the round and wait for my first solve, Oliver Hoy had broken the OcR single record twice in a row, the better of the two being 4.39, breaking Darbys record by over a second. So many mixed emotions same over me after seeing that time on his display, I was overjoyed for him to be able to get a time that fast but completely empty as i had realised that this new record was now faster than any of my solves done at home. Needless to say I had let the thought of not ever being able to get a record like this get to my head, and I was shaking more than I ever had for each and every one of the solves, allowing me to miss out on even making the podium. It was a bit later that I found out that Oli had managed to net the elusive 5.10 average, which I had not realised until a long while after was an incredible average for him to pull of in competition, and put himself at an astonishing ranking of 5th in the world at the time. While this did feel only a bit demotivating, I decided that this wouldnt let me stop getting faster at the event, so that's what I did.

Fast forward to December 2021, after so many more comps with clock popping up and being cancelled I finally had another chance to get the record I had hoped for, however, my nerves got the better of me once again and I had to wait another month. Then I had finally broken Oli's 4.39 with a solve of 4.23, giving me the National Record, just 0.01 seconds shy of the Oceanic Record single now held by Edwin Shen.

After a few more chances this year, counting 6's, false starts, and more nerves had prevented me from getting that OcR I dreamt of, until the morning of July 3rd 2022, where I had gotten the very first Oceanic sub-4, only to find out it had to be disqualified because of a miscramble. I was completely defeated in that moment and lost all faith in myself being able to replicate a performance similar to that. Michael (who was responsible) could visibly feel horrible to have let me down this much. After not being able to find it in myself to be mad at him he had bought me a free lunch for me to process the round over. A mediocre performance in the second round got me to realise that I would be under too much pressure even think about doing well in the final, to which David replied with a simple "Don't say that." and to be honest, if it had not been for such a simple reality check, I really dont believe this record would have ever happened.

Thanks to Oli, Liam, Conan and Edwin for being my sources of motivation to improve to the point that I did
And thanks to Zach and David for supporting me from the beginning
and Michael for free mcdonal

not to mention everyone who congratulated me afterwards, cant appreciate it more :)