Breandan Vallance From Scotland Wins Rubik’s World Speedcubing Championship 2009

DUSSELDORF, Germany -

- With Photo

Four hundred finger-twisting competitors, from 32 countries, took part in the bi-annual Rubik’s World Speedcubing Championship, held in Dusseldorf, Germany at the weekend.

17-year-old student Breandan Vallance defeated all-comers in the traditional 3×3x3 Cube competition - with an average solving time of 10.74 seconds. Breandan, from Beith, Ayrshire, heads home with 5,000 Euros and a trophy. Total prize money for the Championship was 20,000 Euros.

In second and third place respectively were Erik Akkersdijk from the Netherlands (11.52 seconds) and Tomasz Zolnowski from Poland (11.64 seconds). The next three Finalists were Harris Chan (USA - 11.78 seconds), Rowe Hessler (USA - 11.97 seconds) and Milan Baticz (Hungary - 12.07 seconds).

The fastest ’single solve’ recorded at this year’s Championship was by Piti Pichedpan (Thailand) with a time of 8.84 seconds.

The 2007 3×3x3 World Champion, Yu Nakajima from Japan, won the event - held in Budapest, home of the Cube’s Inventor, Professor Erno Rubik - with a time of 12.46 seconds.

This was the largest gathering of the ‘Grandmasters’ of Rubik’s Speedcubing ever. As well as demonstrating their brilliance in conventional Speedcubing using their hands, contestants also entered events to solve The Cube one-handed, with their feet, and blindfolded. Winner of the latter event was Guillain Potron from France, in 1:05 minutes.

Contestants were also able to enter the first ever world-class competition featuring the new, spherical Rubik’s 360 puzzle, which has dazzled the worldwide market since it first went on sale during July 2009. Martin Sylvestri from Switzerland completed it in 38.66 seconds.

For full results visit www.speedcubing.com

“This year’s Championship has been a fabulous occasion - and enormous fun for the many hundreds of spectators who attended, too” says David Hedley Jones, Senior Vice President - Rubik Brand. “It proves that, in the iconic Rubik’s puzzle, we have a phenomenal brand that has fantastic, never-ending potential!

Over almost thirty years, the fiendishly difficult puzzle invented by Professor Erno Rubik has achieved iconic status as the world’s biggest-selling toy ever, with around 350 million copies sold to date. And with over 43 quintillion configurations (exactly 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 degrees of difficulty, in fact) and only one solution, solving it at all is a feat in itself!

Note to Editors:

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Source: Seven Towns Ltd

PR Enquiries And Pics: Ray Hodges - +44(0)1628-894793, r.hodges at hpsgroup.co.uk or contact Breandan direct on +44-(0)7974 858067 or +44-(0)1505-504841 or email fshark at hotmail.co.uk