It took a Belfast teenager just 10.486 seconds to become a UK champion.
Laura Beacom surged to victory at the UK Sport Stacking champion, winning the title for a second time.
The championship took place at Neale-Wade Academy in March, Cambridgeshire, and saw some of the most talented stackers from the UK and Europe battle it out to win the fourth edition of the tournament.
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Laura, the reigning champion from 2020 (the 2021 event was cancelled due to Covid), retained her crown by posting an overall time of 10.486 seconds across three events.
Not only did the Belfast teen win the female category by a comfortable gap of 1.109 seconds ahead of Switzerland’s Simea Fehrenbach, but she also posted a quicker time than Billy Willmoth (10.488 seconds), the winner of the male category.
Though sport stacking may not be on the conscious of everyone, it is a hugely challenging sport where competitors utilise incredible hand-eye coordination, focus, quickness, and physical skills. The name of the game is simple, to stack and unstack cups in a set sequence faster than anyone else.
“It took me a month or two just to properly get the sequences and use them well,” Laura told Fen Regis Trophies.
“It was another year until I started getting good.”
Far bigger in Asia, sport stacking – also known as cup stacking or speed stacking – involves stacking nine or 12 cups in a pre-determined sequence as quickly as possible. Cups are designed specifically for the activity, allowing for faster times. Sequences involve stacking cups in pyramids of three, six or 10 cups.
In 2015, sport stacking entered the Guinness Book of Records for the highest number of worldwide participants at 618,394.
Laura credits the Rubik’s Cube for first getting into sport stacking, due to a similarity in sequences and patterns it takes to solve. The Belfast stacker was 12 when she first tried her hand at the sport that has seen her travel far and wide.
“I was clearing out my house and I found a set of cups I got for Christmas,” said Laura. “I usually wouldn’t have touched [them] but I decided to get them out and give it a go.
“I was okay, but obviously not great. I started on the carpet in my bedroom on the floor, so it wasn’t fast, but I found I learned the sequence quite quickly.
“I got my head around how you are meant to do it quite quickly. It definitely took a while to get to anywhere near being competitive.”
She added: “It was just over a year after I entered my first tournament. The first tournament I went to was July 2017 in Glasgow.
“I live in Northern Ireland, in Belfast, and my mum said to me if there was ever a tournament in Glasgow or Edinburgh or Liverpool, we would get a ferry across and go.”
She added: “I have a chance at winning [a World Championship in the future]. I’m high up in the rankings, but there are people that are faster than me.
“Some of these people have a slight advantage and their tournaments are bigger. In Korea, they are used to competing in front of 200 and 300 people, so they are used to it.
“Times-wise, yes I have a chance – but I would have to have a really good tournament.”
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