The 1982 Rubik's Cube World Championship was a competition for speedsolving the 3×3×3 Rubik's Cube.
History It was held in Budapest, Hungary, on 5 June 1982. Contestants selected from 19 countries took part. Minh Thai from the United States of America was the winner with a best time of 22.95 after three attempts for each contestant. The top attempt of three was taken as the competitor's score. First prize was a gold-plated Rubik's Cube.
Writing shortly afterwards, David Singmaster who was one of the judges, described the competition as being efficiently organized, although at one point power for the TV and the display timer failed in the middle of a trial. The cubes were selected by Ernő Rubik himself, and according to Singmaster "competitors described them as pretty good". However, writing around 20 years later, Jessica Fridrich, who had participated in the contest, criticised the cubes for being "really hard to turn and were not prepared for serious speed cubing".
This competition was the first officially recognised competition of its kind. The next competition was held in 2003 in Canada, with many differences to the competition structure and many other puzzles being added other than the Rubik's Cube. The World Cube Association, founded in 2004, retroactively recognizes the results of the 1982 championship despite substantial differences between the event and modern speedsolving competitions.
Results The results were: Place Name Time Status Country Attempt 1 Attempt 2 Attempt 3 1 Minh Thai 22.95 WR 27.16 22.95 27.97 2 Guus Razoux Schultz 24.32 ER 24.32 31.51 26.51 3 Zoltán Lábas 24.49 NR 24.49 27.58 28.21 4 Lars Petrus 24.57 NR 35.42 33.11 24.57 5 Ken'ichi Ueno (上野健一) 24.91 AsR 27.56 27.90 24.91 6 Jérôme Jean-Charles 25.06 NR 27.87 31.18 25.06 7 Julian Chilvers 25.95 NR 30.59 25.95 27.46 8 Duc Trinh 26.63 NR 37.44 26.63 36.09 9 Giuseppe Romeo 28.11 NR 34.23 41.75 28.11 10 Jessica Fridrich 29.11 NR 31.49 29.11 33.20 11 Eduardo Valdivia Chacón 29.62 SAR 34.91 29.62 30.01 12 Luc Van Laethem 29.73 NR 32.92 34.98 29.73 13 József Borsos 30.02 NR 36.75 35.33 30.02 14 Ronald Brinkmann 30.59 NR 34.80 30.59 32.52 15 Jari Sandqvist 31.17 NR 31.17 DNF* 31.56 16 Manuel Galrinho 37.11 NR 40.74 48.67 37.11 17 Piotr Serbeński 37.50 NR 44.40 37.50 40.86 18 Svilen Tenev 47.29 NR 51.88 47.29 47.35 19 Josef Trajber 50.16 NR 50.16 54.93 58.99
WR = World Record
ER = European Record
AsR = Asian Record
SAR = South American Record
NR = National Record
Sandqvist's second attempt was disqualified, since his cube was broken twice in the same attempt. This was a violation of the competition rules, and the attempt was stopped at that point.
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