The 1982 World Rubik's Cube Championship was a competition for

speedsolving Speedcubing or speedsolving is a competitive mind sport centered around the rapid solving of various combination puzzles. The most prominent puzzle in this category is the 3×3×3 puzzle, commonly known as the Rubik's Cube. Participants in this ...

the 3×3×3 Rubik's Cube. It was held in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

, Hungary, on 5 June 1982. Contestants selected from 19 countries took part.

Minh Thai Minh Thai (born 1965 as Thái Minh) is a Vietnamese-American speedcuber. As a sixteen-year-old Eagle Rock High School student from Los Angeles, he won the first Rubik's Cube world championship on June 5, 1982 in Budapest by solving a Rubik's Cu ...

from the

United States of America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguo ...

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 David Breyer Singmaster (14 December 1938 – 13 February 2023) was an American-British mathematician who was emeritus professor of mathematics at London South Bank University, England. He had a huge personal collection of mechanical puzzles and ...

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 Ernő Rubik (; born 13 July 1944) is a Hungarian architect and inventor, widely known for creating the Rubik's Cube (1974), Rubik's Magic, and Rubik's Snake. While Rubik became famous for inventing the Rubik's Cube and his other puzzles, m ...

himself, and according to Singmaster "competitors described them as pretty good". However, writing around 20 years later,

Jessica Fridrich Jessica Fridrich (born Jiří Fridrich) is a professor at Binghamton University, who specializes in data hiding applications in digital imagery. She is also known for documenting and popularizing the CFOP method (sometimes referred to as the "Fri ...

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 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...

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 The World Cube Association (WCA) is the worldwide non-profit organization that regulates and holds competitions for mechanical puzzles that are operated by twisting groups of pieces, commonly known as '' twisty puzzles'' (a subcategory of combi ...

, 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: WR = World Record ER = European Record AsR = Asian Record SAR = South American Record NR = National Record * Sandqivst'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.

References

{{Rubik's Cube Rubik's Cube 1982 in Hungarian sport 1982 in sports International sports competitions in Budapest International sports competitions hosted by Hungary