Mats Valk and Feliks Zemdegs: Top 2 Seeds, 3x3 Final Round, Rubik's Cube World Championship 2013

Update (May 2, 2014): This video was embedded by an excellent Guardian article about speedcubing: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/02/rubiks-cube-competitive-world-speedcubing

FAQ: What cubes are they using?
A: Commenters below say that Mats uses a Moyu Weilong and Feliks uses a Dayan Zhanchi. (I don't know, myself.)

Downloadable Vimeo version here: https://vimeo.com/71496831
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YouKu version for China: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTkwNTM1NTg0.html

Start time links:
Solve 1: Mats: 0:32, Feliks: 1:04
Solve 2: Mats: 1:28, Feliks: 1:56
Solve 3: Mats: 2:22, Feliks: 2:49
Solve 4: Mats: 3:15, Feliks: 3:39
Solve 5: Mats: 4:04, Feliks: 4:53

Mats's Solve 5 features an instant replay.

Felix Zemdegs and Mats Valk were the top 2 seeds going into the finals, and they would win the top 2 places. It all came down to the last pair of solves...

Footage from front row and table cams via picture-in-picture.

Follow Lucas Garron's channel for more tablecam footage: http://www.youtube.com/user/LucasGarron
Full table cam of Feliks's solves: http://youtu.be/m250xEA3mM4

Re: The +2, here's my analysis:

At the time of the penalty assessment:

If there's no penalty:*
Mats Valk: 8.81, (9.52), 7.61, (7.31), 7.76 Avg: 8.06
Feliks Zemdegs: 8.39, 7.95, 8.21, 7.36

Feliks would need an 8.01 on his final solve to win.

If there is a penalty, then 9.76 is worse than 8.1, and so:
Mats Valk: 8.81, 9.52, 7.61, (7.31), (9.76+) Avg: 8.65
Feliks Zemdegs: 8.39, 7.95, 8.21, (7.36), (x) Avg: 8.18

Feliks would win no matter what he does on his last solve. (And it so happens he ends up getting his worst solve, and it doesn't matter.)

*Of course, it's also important to keep in mind that "Mats would've won if he didn't get the +2" makes two key mistaken assumptions about variables that are not independent:

1) If there were no penalty, it likely would've been due to him spending slightly more time turning the piece, which means the time would've been slightly higher, though not by much

2) If Mats's solve 5 time were around 8 seconds, Feliks might've tried a bit harder on solve 5. As it was, you could see him visibly relax (in Lucas's table cam footage).

It remains the case that if Mats spent slightly more time turning that last bit, Feliks would have been on the spot to deliver something close to an 8 or faster, and there would've been no guarantee that he would've succeeded, but that's all we could say about that; the exact details of his solve would've turned out differently.

http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/c.php?top3=Top+3&competitionId=WC2013

Footage credit: Lucas Garron, Kenneth Lu, and the Rubik's Cube World Championship 2013 Organization Team

Видео Mats Valk and Feliks Zemdegs: Top 2 Seeds, 3x3 Final Round, Rubik's Cube World Championship 2013 канала Kenneth Lu