# Forgotten world records



## rybaby (Aug 20, 2013)

I saw a video of the 1982 U.S. Rubik's cube competition on That's Incredible (this was after the 1982 WC).






If you listen in at 2:35, they say David Maez has the world record with a time of 20.49 seconds. Of course, this was the fastest time ever in competition, even faster than Minh Thai's World Championship time. Why has this been forgotten? I found a link to back this up: http://www.cubeman.org/con2.txt.

Also, I wish David Allen would still compete....


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## AvGalen (Aug 20, 2013)

Interesting find. I have no idea about other (non-USA) times from back then, but I am sure that there are a couple of people on this forum (Guus) that would have something to say about this.
I never understood why the WCA choose to include the https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/c.php?i=WC1982 tournament though. Clearly WCA-rules were not followed


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## Kirjava (Aug 20, 2013)

http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/s...ing-Discussion&p=848377&viewfull=1#post848377

I was cool before it was cool to be cool


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## Stefan (Aug 20, 2013)

rybaby said:


> Of course, this was the fastest time ever in competition



http://www.jaapsch.net/puzzles/cubic3.htm#p5



AvGalen said:


> I never understood why the WCA choose to include the https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/c.php?i=WC1982 tournament though. *Clearly WCA-rules were not followed*



All WCA rules that existed were followed.


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## Kirjava (Aug 20, 2013)

```
first Czech national championship	May 11, 1982
- three rounds, 5 best went into the finals
- J. Fridrich won the first and second rounds; M. Goljan won the last third round
- J. Fridrich's "second time of 23.55" (out of 3 attempts) got the first place, Mirek was second trailing by ~2 sec, Ludek was third
second Czech national championship	March ?, 1983
- Robert Pergl won all three rounds, with a best time of 17.04



local contest (dutch?)			September 1981
- Guus R.S. was 2nd with 40 sec, Marc Waterman won with 36 sec
Dutch Championships			April 29 1982 in Utrecht
- new cubes and each competitor had 3 attempts, Guus R.S. won with 29 sec, Marc Watermna got 31 (32?) sec, Daan Krammer got 3rd with 33 sec



1982 world champs, budapest, june 5
#	Name			Best	Country		Times			Age	Occupation
1	Minh Thai		22.95	USA		27.16   22.95   27.97	16y	Student
2	Guus Razoux Schultz	24.32	Netherlands	24.32   31.51   26.15	17y	Student
3	Zoltán Lábas		24.49	Hungary		24.49   27.58   28.21	26y	Student
4	Lars Petrus		24.57	Sweden		35.42   33.11   24.57	21y	Student
5	Ken`ichi Ueno		24.91	Japan		27.56   27.90   24.91	18y	Student
6	Jerome Jean-Charles**	25.06	France		27.87   31.18   25.06	26y	Journalist
7	Julian Chilvers		25.95	Great Britain	30.59   25.95   27.46	15y	Student
8	Duc Trinh		26.63	Canada		37.44   26.63   36.09	14y	Student
9	Giuseppe Romeo		28.11	Italy		34.23   41.75   28.11	16y	Student
10	Jiri Fridrich		29.11	Czechoslovakia	31.49   29.11   33.20	17y	Student
11	Eduardo Valdivia Chacon	29.62	Peru		34.91   29.62   30.01	21y	Student
12	Luc Van Laethem		29.73	Belgium		32.92   34.98   29.73	25y	Student
13	Jozsef Borsos		30.02	Yugoslavia	36.75   35.33   30.02	16y	Student
14	Roland Brinkmann	30.59	West Germany	34.80   30.59   32.32	17y	Student
15	Jari Sandqvist		31.17	Finland		31.17   DNF   31.56	21y	Advertising Representative
16	Manuel Galrinho		37.11	Portugal	40.74   48.67   37.11	24y	Teacher
17	Piotr Serbenski*	37.50	Poland		44.40   37.50   40.86	17y	Student
18	Svilen Tenev		47.29	Bulgaria	51.88   47.29   47.35	18y	Student
19	Josef Trajber		50.16	Austria		50.16   54.93   58.99	25y	Computer Programmer
*misspelled in WCAdb
**Jérôme?
Trajber (Austria): Best time 29
Luc van Laethem (Bel): Best 17, won the Belgium champs with 34
Svilen Tenev (Bulgaria): Best 40
Duc Trinh (Can): Won the Canadian champs with 26
Fridrich (Cze): Won Czech champ with 23.55.
Jari Sandquist (Fin): Best 19
Jerome Jean Charles (France): Won French champ with 25.60
Julian Chilvers (Great Britain): Won British Isles Championship with 25.79
Guus Razoux Schultz (Hol): Best 18
Zoltan Labas (Hun): won champs in 36.9 sec avergae
Giuseppe Romeo (Italy): Won Italian champs with 26
Ken'ichi Ueno (Jap): Best 22, won Japanese champs with 42.30
Eduardo Valdivia Chacon (Peru): Best official time 26.80
Piotr Serbenski (Poland): Best 28.50
Lars Petrus (Swe): Recorded 24 in Swedish champs
Minh Thai (USA): On That's Incredible 26.06
Roland Brinkman (Ger): Won German champs with 19
Jozsef Borsos (Yu): Winning times in Yugoslavian champs: 43, 38, 28
Portugal master: no info provided



competition in Imperial Hotel at Tokyo		Jan. 31, 1981
- sponsored by Japan Cubist Club
- 400 entries and 73 passed the qualifying round, three attempts, new cubes
- winner was 16y student Hideki Kitajima, with times of 62, 46, 49 seconds (average: 52 1/3 seconds).



Rainer Seitz organised a Guiness Book of Records bash in Munich on 6-13 March 81 at the Olympia Shopping Centre. The Centre is connected with the German publisher of the Guiness Book). The best times were 38 seconds, again due to new cubes, achieved by Ronald Brinkmann and Jury Fröschl, an 18 year old Munich boy.



Ideal has begun a world championship, though it hasn't yet received much attention in the UK, where the Daily Mirror is co-sponsoring it. Mal Davies (of whom more later) has kindly passed on the first four (of eight) regional results.
Edinburgh - Alex McNair, Edinburgh	48.85 sec
Manchester - Edgar Whitley, Colwyn Bay	39.98
York - Brian Storey, Sunderland	41.76
Midlands - Nicolas Hammond, Nottingham	35.38
Bristol - Julian Bush, Bristol	52.09
Great Yarmouth - Julian Chilvers	38.67
Southampton - Christopher Lennon, Portsmouth	55.35
London (1st trial) -Ben Jones, St Nicholas-at-Wade	46.12
(In third position was Debbie Wade, fastest girl at 49.57; and in the lead at lunch time with 61.71 sec was Benjamin Ealovega of Haslemere, Surrey, age 9, who says he won't subscribe to Cubic Circular unless this is mentioned!)
The rules allow a 15 second look at the Cube on a table. An automatic timer records the time from when it is picked up to when it is set down. Only one trial is allowed in the regionals, but there will be three trials at the final which will be on 12 December in London. New Cubes are used which are described as randomised by a computer and contestants pick one from a bin full. There will be a world championship in Monte Carlo next year.



The French national finals were held recently and Jérôme Jean-Charles won with a time of 25.6 seconds. The New England regional was won by a 9 year old boy named Jonathan Cheyer in 48.31 seconds.



Lars Petrus says:
BTW, you should have seen the cubes for the Swedish 1981 competition.
I won that one in over 40 seconds!!

Julian Chilvers, age 15, from Norwich, won the UK Championship on 12 December. He clocked 25.79 seconds, a world record, on his third and final trial. He also had the second best time, 28.36 seconds, on the second trial. He reports that he uses ordinary car grease as a lubricant. He does the corners first, then completes most of the top and bottom, then the middle. One contestant's cube flew apart. Another said he didn't like Vaseline as it ran out when his cube 'got hot'. How fast was he turning it?? One contestant had sweatbands on his arms, but he confessed it was mostly to frighten the opposition. Nial Ferguson, the Irish champion, was, at age 20, the oldest competitor. He wore gloves between trials to keep his hands warm.

The US Championship was done on a TV show "That's Incredible", recorded on 13 November and broadcast on 7 December. Minh Thai, a Vietnamese refugee, age 16, won in a time of 26.04 seconds. The first prize was $2000 plus the trip to the World Championships. Second place went to Jeffrey Varasano with a time of 28.96 seconds. Jeffrey holds the US record with a time of 24.67 seconds in the Eastern Regional Competition.


The Hungarian Championship was held on 27 September 1981. A local elimination round gave 300 competitors and a second round on 20 September left 128, classified as under 15, 15 to 18, over 18, containing 58, 31 and 39 competitors. Three trials were made and the average time taken. The best five in each class then formed a three trials, average time, final. Zoltán Lábas won the over 18 class with an average of 37.1 sec and the final with 36.9 sec.

The Czech competition, held on 11 May, had three categories: children up to 10 years; women and girls; men and boys. In the semifinals they had seven trials and the middle five were averaged, but the finals were for best time out of three trials. Jiri Fridrich, 17, of Ostrava-Poruba, was first in the semifinals with an average of 32.24 seconds and in the finals with a best time of 23.55 seconds.

I have only heard of one Rubik's Revenge (= 43) Competition. This was organised by the Daily Star, a UK newspaper, on 25 June 1983. Julian Chilvers, the UK Rubik's Cube Champion, was best with a time of 119 sec. He won a Ford Fiesta 950 painted all over with cubes. Unfortunately, he's too young to drive and so he sold it.

Ideal Toys held the first UK competition in 1981 less than a year after the cube was launched (sponsored by the Daily Mirror). The following times were recorded in the regional championships;

Edinburgh heat - Alex McNair from Edinburgh in 48.85 secs, Manchester heat - Edgar Whitley from Colwyn Bay in 39.98 secs, York heat - Brian Storey from Sunderland in 41.76 secs, Midlands heat Nicolas Hammond from Nottingham in 35.38 secs, Bristol heat - Julian Bush from Bristol in 52.09 secs, Great Yarmouth heat - Julian Chilvers from Great Yarmouth in 38.67 secs, Southampton heat - Christopher Lennon from Portsmouth in 55.35 secs, London heat - Ben Jones from St Nicholas-at-Wade in 46.12 secs.

<+Kirjava> 12 december 1981; Julian Chilvers, 15 does a greased Rubik.s cube in 25.79 seconds


United States cube contest results:

Results of the First Rubik Cube-A-Thon National Finals
------------------------------------------------------

Los Angeles, California on Nov. 13, 1981
Broadcast on "That's Incredible" TV show on Dec. 7, 1981

1981 National Championships Final Standings & Times

1. Minh Thai        Los Angeles, CA      26.04 s
2. Jeff Varasano    Bronx, NY            28.96 s
3. Lance Ahrens     Massapequa Park, NY  30.83 s
4. Michael Mandell  Oak Park, IL         34.11 s
5. Kris Wunderlich  DeKalb, IL           35.30 s
6. Holden Thorpe    Fayetteville, NC     52.05 s
7. Tom Nierman      Columbia, IL         55.39 s
8. Jonathan Cheyer  Sharon, MA           DNF in 60 s
9. David Conrady    Denton, TX           DNF in 60 s

Results of the First Regional Cube-A-Thon (Top 3)
-------------------------------------------------

Place      Name                   Age               Hometown              Time
-----      ----                   ---               --------              ----

Boston MA   July 25, 1981 
(Boston contest was unique in being divided into 2 age groups)
1.         Jonathan Cheyer         9                Sharon Mass.            48.31
2.         Jeff Varasano          15                Bronx NY                51.16
3.         Peter Pezaris          11                Winchester Mass.        51.59

1.         Holden Thorpe          17                Fayetteville NC       1:09.64
2.         Charles Haines         --                Lexington Mass.       1:09.83
3.         Rick Miranda           --                Bedford Mass.         1:17.26

Chicago IL  Sept. 26, 1981
1.         Kris Wunderlich        16                DeKalb IL               37.72
2.         Dave Naehring          17                Naperville IL           51.52
3.         Kent Johnson           18                Wheaton IL              53.81

New Jersey  Oct. 3, 1981 
1.         Jeffrey Varasano       15                Bronx NY                24.67
2.         Robert Jen             15                Monroe CT               27.41
3.         Lance Ahrens           15                Massaqequa Park, NY     37.34

Atlanta GA  Oct. 10, 1981         
1.         Michael Mandel         13                Oak Park MI             43.48
2.         Edward Earl            17                Spartanburg SC          52.64
3.         James Nygaard          15                Atlanta GA              57.51

St. Louis MO  Oct. 17, 1981 
1.         Tom Nierman            16                Columbia IL             36.80
2.         Shelden Levenstein     19                Glenwood IL             46.77
3.         Roger Schlafin         25                Alton IL                54.77

Houston TX  Oct. 25, 1981
1.         Lance Ahrens           15                Massapequa Park, NY     33.48
2.         Brian Graham           15                Houston TX              38.52
3.         Paul Schliesing        16                Houston TX              39.80

Dallas TX  Oct. 24, 1981
1.         David Conrady          19                Denton TX	            57.06
2.         Lee Pomerantz          16                Dallas TX               59.44
3.         Alex Zocchi            15                Dallas TX             1:06.41

Los Angeles CA  Oct. 31, 1981   
1.         Minh Thai              16                Los Angeles CA          39.40
2.         Brad Pavia             17                Malibu CA               40.25
3.         Curtis Smith           23                Fresno CA               44.50
```


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## XTowncuber (Aug 20, 2013)

"David Allen" actually has a pretty modern turning style. Some nice U/U's in there. Definitely an interesting vid.


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## rybaby (Aug 20, 2013)

Stefan said:


> http://www.jaapsch.net/puzzles/cubic3.htm#p5



Didn't know about that...are you sure those faster times are competition times and not at home PBs?
For instance, Guus Razoux-Schultz won the Dutch Nationals in 1982 with a time of 29.34 seconds (http://www.cubeman.org/dutch.txt) but his time is listed as 18.5 seconds. 

Edit: Just saw the bottom with Ronald Brinkmann's time of 19 seconds. I guess that was in a competition?


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## Stefan (Aug 20, 2013)

rybaby said:


> are you sure those faster times are competition times and not at home PBs?
> For instance, Guus Razoux-Schultz won the Dutch Nationals in 1982 with a time of 29.34 seconds (http://www.cubeman.org/dutch.txt) but his time is listed as 18.5 seconds.



No, but I suspect the times preceded by _"won in"_ were competition times. Guus' time isn't one of those.

And yes, at least for Ronald I had found the information elsewhere as well, with a competition name. For example:
http://www.recordholders.org/en/list/rubik.html


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## AvGalen (Aug 20, 2013)

Stefan said:


> http://www.jaapsch.net/puzzles/cubic3.htm#p5
> 
> 
> 
> All WCA rules that existed were followed.


Nice try, but all other tournaments at that time also followed all WCA rules that existed but they are not included
(love you new avatar)


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## larosh12 (Aug 20, 2013)

Intersting ! I am cubing for 4 month and I my pb is 19.20 . It means I could have a world record back then.


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## Stefan (Aug 20, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> Nice try, but all other tournaments at that time also followed all WCA rules that existed but they are not included



I know. I just commented on the part I bold-marked.


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## AvGalen (Aug 20, 2013)

larosh12 said:


> Intersting ! I am cubing for 4 month and I my pb is 19.20 . It means I could have a world record back then.


Probably not on the cubes they were using that day



Stefan said:


> I know. I just commented on the part I bold-marked.


Any idea why WC1982 was included but not any of the selection rounds? Is it just because it all started with WC2003 and everyone was comparing with the previous WC?


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## Stefan (Aug 20, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> Any idea why WC1982 was included but not any of the selection rounds? Is it just because it all started with WC2003 and everyone was comparing with the previous WC?



Don't know. I'm mostly a software guy here, not a data guy. You better ask Ron, I guess.


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## TMOY (Aug 20, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> Any idea why WC1982 was included but not any of the selection rounds? Is it just because it all started with WC2003 and everyone was comparing with the previous WC?



Maybe because those results were lost ? (Ii have never seen the full results of French Nats 1981 for example, I only know that Jérôme Jean-Charles went to Worlds because he won them.)


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## Kirjava (Aug 20, 2013)

verifying the authenticity of these solves at this point will prove too difficult to warrant their inclusion in the list.

wc82 is there because rubik's. Are any other comps we know of from this period confirmed to have been done by rubik's?



AvGalen said:


> I never understood why the WCA choose to include the https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/c.php?i=WC1982 tournament though.



I like the idea that people may consider that the World Rubik's Cube Championship held by Rubik's should not be considered official.


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## AvGalen (Aug 21, 2013)

Kirjava said:


> verifying the authenticity of these solves at this point will prove too difficult to warrant their inclusion in the list.
> 
> wc82 is there because rubik's. Are any other comps we know of from this period confirmed to have been done by rubik's?
> 
> ...


Wooooh: I never said anything about that championship not being official. I just wondered why it is on the WCA-list when the WCA didn't even exist until 20 years later with totally different rules


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## rybaby (Aug 21, 2013)

That is an interesting point about WC 1982. In my opinion, they should either include all qualifying rounds (local and national) in that list or just skip till 2003 when the WCA was established. But I still like to see the results of old competitions because they provide great comparison. As for now, Minh Thai is considered the WR holder from 1982-2003. Maybe if more old info was available there would be more official WRs from that time.


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## Stefan (Aug 21, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> I just wondered why it is on the WCA-list when the WCA didn't even exist until 20 years later with totally different rules



Apparently it is deemed interesting and good enough. And as far as I can tell, it's not called a WCA competition, it's just a competition that WCA recognizes.



rybaby said:


> they should either include all qualifying rounds (local and national) in that list or just skip till 2003 when the WCA was established.



Why?


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## qqwref (Aug 21, 2013)

Yeah, I'd like to have WC1982 removed from the WCA competitions list as well. It's just inconsistent - there were many competitions in the early 80s, none of which followed the (nonexistent) WCA regulations, but only one of them is in our database. Its existence as an extreme outlier also causes some weird statistical issues, such as having a retired cuber hold the "WR" for over 20 years while others were regularly getting averages below his time (and while better times had been achieved in competitions in the 80s). Although Minh Thai's time is worth keeping track of as a historical item of interest, the inaugural WCA records ought to be the ones set at WC2003.

As a sidenote, it would be very interesting to have some kind of unofficial database with as much information as we can gather on the early competitions. Of course, I'm sure much of the data is lost, so it may never be a complete database. Perhaps we could start this project on the wiki somewhere.


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## Kirjava (Aug 21, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> Wooooh: I never said anything about that championship not being official. I just wondered why it is on the WCA-list when the WCA didn't even exist until 20 years later with totally different rules



I thought that may have been misconstrued. You'd just made me think of the idea, I didn't know if you held it or not.


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## MarcelP (Aug 21, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> I never understood why the WCA choose to include the https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/c.php?i=WC1982 tournament though. Clearly WCA-rules were not followed





qqwref said:


> Yeah, I'd like to have WC1982 removed from the WCA competitions list as well.



Inconsistent or not, I would hate it that this info would be removed. Like the title of this topic it will really be forgotten in time. Treasure ancient cube stuff like this


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## AvGalen (Aug 21, 2013)

qqwref said:


> Yeah, I'd like to have WC1982 removed from the WCA competitions list as well. It's just inconsistent - there were many competitions in the early 80s, none of which followed the (nonexistent) WCA regulations, but only one of them is in our database. Its existence as an extreme outlier also causes some weird statistical issues, such as having a retired cuber hold the "WR" for over 20 years while others were regularly getting averages below his time (and while better times had been achieved in competitions in the 80s). Although Minh Thai's time is worth keeping track of as a historical item of interest, the inaugural WCA records ought to be the ones set at WC2003.
> 
> As a sidenote, it would be very interesting to have some kind of unofficial database with as much information as we can gather on the early competitions. Of course, I'm sure much of the data is lost, so it may never be a complete database. Perhaps we could start this project on the wiki somewhere.


I am fully supporting this idea. Start at WC2003, make a seperate historical list


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## Sebastien (Aug 21, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> I am fully supporting this idea. Start at WC2003, make a seperate historical list



Why would you treat WC2003 differently than WC1982 then?  Both are only "WCA recognized" competitions.


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## AvGalen (Aug 21, 2013)

Sebastien said:


> Why would you treat WC2003 differently than WC1982 then?  Both are only "WCA recognized" competitions.


I don't know enough about WC2003 to judge about that. It seems most rules and people at WC2003 were the same as the competitions after that. Of course rules have changed often after that, but you have to draw the "similar enough" line somewhere and WC2003 seems like the beginning to me


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## rybaby (Aug 21, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Why?



Qqwref said it better. Maybe don't recognize those old competitions as official by the wca, but an unofficial database would be interesting. I bet some old schoolers could tell us more (guusrs, varasano, lars, etc.)


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## Kirjava (Aug 21, 2013)

I think inconsistant rules would make old results incomparable. IIRC finland had a head to head format and didn't even time.


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## AvGalen (Aug 21, 2013)

Kirjava said:


> I think inconsistant rules would make old results incomparable. IIRC finland had a head to head format and didn't even time.


aaaaaaaaargh, it is almost as if those organisers didn't anticipate the formation of the WCA and the accompanying online result database! Were those people br**nd**d or something 

The old results don't have to be in the same format as the current database. Even a well structured text-document would serve nicely


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