About
What this is
A publication built purely from official data: every competition, every competitor, every solve since 1982. We query, verify and write.
The Middle Three is a publication built purely from official data: every competition, every competitor, every solve in the sport's official record, back to 1982. We do not interview, speculate or editorialise. We query, verify and write.
The middle three are the solves that decide everything. Cubing scores a performance as the average of five: five solves, the fastest and the slowest thrown away, the middle three counted. This publication is named for the three that stand, and it treats the sport's data the same way — trim the noise, keep what matters.
In an average of five, two solves are thrown away. We kept those too: all 30,069,982 completed solves ever recorded are in our dataset, and the pages rebuild every night as new results land.
Every number on this site traces to that dataset, which is rebuilt nightly from the World Cube Association's public results export. Where something cannot be verified against it, we say so or leave it out.
Who makes this
The Middle Three is created, owned and published by Fact and Story, a content studio that builds publications and graphics from data. The writing, design, graphics and code of this site are © Fact and Story. The underlying competition results are owned and maintained by the World Cube Association, and our use of them carries the attribution shown at the foot of every page. The Middle Three is independent of the WCA and of any cube manufacturer.
Contact: [email protected]
Your page, your call
Competitor pages are generated from public competition results, and many competitors are children. If you want your page, or your child's page, removed, that takes one request and survives every rebuild. Contact: [email protected]. Removal is permanent unless you ask us to restore it.