Who Predicted Euros 2026 Best?
One entrant edged out the field by a single point in a championship where the community correctly predicted only six of the 17 event winners.
Roman Zakoulov Wins Euros 2026 Prediction Challenge
The winning ballot scored 65 points with 18 exact podium hits during a championship that mixed dominant favorites with results almost nobody predicted.
Euros 2026 gave predictors two very different kinds of events.
Tymon Kolasiński delivered in the big cubes, winning 4x4, 5x5, 6x6 and 7x7. Teodor Zajder received a majority of the first-place picks in 2x2 and delivered the victory. Antoni Stojek was also the majority pick in Clock and finished first.
Elsewhere, the podiums became much harder to anticipate. Adrian Dębski won 3x3 Blindfolded, Krzysztof Pietrusiak won Fewest Moves, Milan Vincent Andric won Pyraminx, Ryan Eckersley won 4x4 Blindfolded, and Ezra Hirschi won 5x5 Blindfolded. Several of those winners received few or no first-place selections.
When the final scores were calculated, Roman Zakoulov finished on top of the Euros Prediction Challenge with 65 points.
Catherine Jehanno finished only one point behind at 64, while Curren Stewart placed third with 62.
How Roman Won
Each exact podium position was worth three points, while correctly selecting a podium competitor in the wrong position earned one point.
Roman correctly identified 29 of the championship’s 51 podium competitors, including 18 in their exact finishing positions.
The winning ballot perfectly predicted the entire 2x2 podium:
Roman also hit two exact positions in five other events:
4x4
5x5
6x6
7x7
5x5 Blindfolded
That combination of a perfect 2x2 podium, reliable big-cube selections and enough points throughout the more unpredictable events was enough to win by one point.
How the Community Did
Using the most common selection for each podium position, while preventing the same competitor from appearing twice in one event, the community consensus ballot scored 51 points with 12 exact hits.
That total would have tied for 39th place on points.
The consensus ballot did not perfectly predict an entire podium, but it hit two exact positions in five events:
4x4
5x5
6x6
7x7
Clock
The most-picked event winners finished first in only six of the 17 events.
Tymon Kolasiński was the safest selection. He received the majority of first-place picks in 4x4, 5x5, 6x6 and 7x7. He won all four events.
Every entrant included Tymon somewhere on their 4x4, 5x5 and 6x6 podiums. All but one included him in 7x7.
Timofei Tarasenko’s absence also affected a large number of ballots. He was a frequent podium selection in 4x4 through 7x7 and Megaminx, but did not appear at Euros. Because his absence was not known before the competition, entrants had no opportunity to adjust their predictions.
Teodor Zajder received the majority first-place picks in 2x2 and delivered the victory. Antoni Stojek was selected to win Clock by the majority and also finished first.
The community was much less successful in 3x3.
Tymon received 86% of the first-place picks, while only 11% of entrants selected Teodor Zajder to win. Teodor took the title with a 5.46 average, followed by Valerio Locatelli and Tymon.
The Predictions Nobody Saw Coming
Fewest Moves was the hardest event to predict.
Entrants averaged just 0.59 points out of nine, and 68% of ballots received no points at all.
Not one entrant picked Krzysztof Pietrusiak to win. Only three included him anywhere on their podium, and all three placed him third. Pietrusiak won with a 20.67 mean.
The 3x3 Blindfolded winner was almost as unexpected.
No entrant selected Adrian Dębski to win. Only one ballot included him anywhere on the podium, placing him second. Dębski finished first ahead of Jens Haber and Charles Daloz-Baltenberger.
Valerio Locatelli’s silver medal in 3x3 was another nearly impossible call. Only one entrant included him anywhere on their podium, and that ballot placed him third.
Milan Vincent Andric received only one first-place pick in Pyraminx. He went on to win the event ahead of Jakub Majchrzak and Alexey Tsvetkov.
Only three entrants picked Ryan Eckersley to win 4x4 Blindfolded.
Not one entrant picked Ezra Hirschi to win 5x5 Blindfolded.
Those were not obscure bronze-medal surprises. Each one won the event.
Bold Predictions That Came True
Several entrants went beyond their podium ballots and correctly called memorable championship results.
Antoni Stojek and Aleksandra Stojek both predicted that Antoni would win Clock.
Zakaria Mirre predicted that Milan Vincent Andric would win Pyraminx. Milan was selected to win by only one entrant, and Zakaria was that entrant.
Archie Goodman predicted that Nicholas Archer would beat Luke Garrett in One-Handed. Archer won the event and set a European average record during the competition.
Michał Denkiewicz predicted that Poland would win at least 10 of the 17 official events. Polish competitors won exactly 10 overall gold medals, in addition to Jakub Majchrzak earning the European Pyraminx title behind American winner Milan Vincent Andric.
Closest Tiebreaker Predictions
Seven different countries won at least one overall event gold medal:
Poland
United Kingdom
Ireland
United States
Czech Republic
Switzerland
Austria
Twenty-nine entrants predicted exactly seven.
The winning 3x3 average was Teodor Zajder’s 5.46.
Gabriel Fernandes submitted the closest prediction at 5.45, missing by only 0.01 seconds.
The fastest 3x3 single in the final was Tymon Kolasiński’s 4.34. Aleksander Sołonczak predicted exactly 4.34.
The tiebreakers were not needed to determine the overall winner.
Roman Zakoulov finished one point ahead of Catherine Jehanno, completing the closest Prediction Challenge finish yet.
How can I know how many points I won? I calculated that I had 68 points.
“Antoni Stojek and Aleksandra Stojek both predicted that Antoni would win Clock.” holy aura 😭