I just don't have much info on International. I'm talking about the first US Competition. It may have been the first in the world, but I just don't know.
The July 25, 1981 competition was organized by Ideal Toys who had the U.S. rights to the toy. I doubt there was any before hand because I'm sure someone would have mentioned it at all the other competitions I went to. Also, since the puzzle really started picking up in sales early that year, I doubt anyone prior to that would have given it a thought or had much time to do anything. Ideal was the only interested party looking to promote their product. Everything happened so fast. At Christmas 1980 it was nothing remarkable. By March 1981 they were springing up everywhere. By May it was like the biggest fad ever. I read about the contest in the NY Times a week or so beforehand and convinced my family to drive me up there.
When I talk to people, I always say that I held the U.S. record, never the world record. I may have though. My time of 24.67 was recorded October 3, 1981. I've not heard of the German and Chech records but I don't doubt them. They are listed as 1982. That's a broad range because times for everyone were dropping quickly in those days. By early 1982 I was averaging around 24 and by May or so I hit my peak, probably around 21.8 or so. I remember that in any given sheet of 120 that I recorded there would be 1 or 2 in the 17 range and 1 or 2 in the 26 range. The rest were in between. I had some sub 15's but I never considered them significant cause I always looked at average. I also had to stop and start a stopwatch by hand. I still have it.
These times are probably accurate:
http://cubeman.org/contest.txt
The first one, in Boston, was at a department store. Then you can see that there was a 2 month gap while they organized 7 weekly regional contests at Six Flags Amusement Parks. The Boston one was a trial. They had no idea that 1100 people would try out. There were just lines and lines. I was the only one with a sub minute average, but there were a few other sub minute times recorded. They divided the contest into age groups cause they thought that kids wouldn't do as well, and since that was their target market they wanted kids to compete in their own category. You can see they dropped that idea when the kids easily beat the adults.
In NJ you can see that the #3 contest was Lance Ahrens. He then flew to Houston and won there so he got to compete in the Nationals in LA. The nationals were on "That's Incredible" on ABC. I just found this link:
http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Andy/Leftovers/KristinCube.html
The girl is Kristin Wunderlich who came in 5th. The t-shirt she is wearing was given out to the contestants
