BUDAPEST:Japan's Yu Nakajima (16) won yesterday's World Rubik's Cube championship in Budapest, where Hungarian professor Erno Rubik invented the puzzle more than a quarter of a century ago, writes Daniel McLaughlinin Budapest.
Prof Rubik (63) presented Nakajima with a cheque for €5,000 after he solved five cubes in an average time of just 12.46 seconds, quicker than more than 300 other entrants from over 30 nations in an event that organisers said proved the enduring power of the puzzle.
Other competitors raced to solve the cube while blindfolded, or using only one hand or their bare feet.
Prof Rubik created the multicoloured toy in 1974 and it crossed the Iron Curtain to the West six years later, leading to sales of about 300 million cubes, including seven million last year.
In what was predicted by competitors in Budapest as a showdown between the finest French and Japanese "cubers", Nakajima triumphed over reigning world champion Jean Pons, and Thibaut Jacquinot (17), who set the world record in May for solving a single cube - 9.86 seconds. Long portrayed as a pastime for bedroom-bound geeks, "cubers" found an unlikely poster boy last year in actor Will Smith, whose character in the hit film The Pursuit of Happyness solves a Rubik's Cube to impress a potential boss.
"Will really wanted to do that scene himself, so the movie company found me and my brother Tyson and we went to the studio and film set to teach him," said Toby Mao (18), one of America's fastest "speedcubers".
"He was a complete beginner, but it's really not hard to learn, it's just about recognising patterns, memorising a few moves and simple logic. You don't have to be super-bright or mathematical. Will was a very busy guy, but by the end he could complete it in about two minutes."
"That was a proud moment for me at a time when very few people could do it," said Prof Rubik. "Back then, my task was to prove that it could be done, because people said it couldn't. But now these 'wonder boys' can do it much faster than I was able to. I would have no chance to be a contestant in the championships."