Speedcubing moving average page spotlights who is hottest right now

With alpha set at 0.8, the moving average page is speedcubing’s closest thing to a live form chart. It does not care who owns the best résumé or the loudest single solve; it asks a cleaner question: who is actually performing best right now.

A recency-weighted read on form

The core idea is an exponentially weighted moving average. In plain English, that means the newest averages carry more weight than older ones, so the page reacts fast when someone catches fire and fades fast when the run cools off. That is exactly why it feels useful during a packed competition stretch, when a cuber’s last few weekends can tell you more than a distant personal-best headline.

Competitors with fewer than five averages are ignored. That keeps a tiny sample from hijacking the picture and makes the page about real form, not one lucky breakout.

Why it fits the WCA ecosystem

The World Cube Association governs competitions for twisty puzzles and maintains the rankings, records, and statistics that every serious cuber checks sooner or later. Its rankings pages were refreshed on June 28 and June 29, 2026, including the 3x3x3 Cube single page stamped Monday, June 29, 2026 at 11:41 AM PDT.

The WCA says more than 245,000 people have competed in its events, and it remains almost entirely volunteer-run. The organization traces its official founding to October 18, 2004, and says more than 13,000 competitions have been held worldwide since then. Early milestones included the Ile-de-France competition and Caltech Fall 2004.

What the page is really for

The moving average page does not replace official rankings. It complements them with a momentum view. Official rankings tell you where somebody sits over the long haul; the moving average tells you whether they are peaking, holding steady, or slipping.

That makes it especially handy before major competitions. If a competitor has stacked a few strong weeks, the metric rises quickly. If the same competitor starts missing, the number drifts down just as quickly.

The data behind the number

The Results Export system updates after each competition weekend once results are finalized, which gives statistics tools a steady stream of validated performances to work with. Without that exported result base, there is no clean way to build a recency-weighted view that tracks current form across thousands of official solves.

The broader statistics culture also encourages experimentation. The WCA Statistics site invites users to suggest new statistics if they are widely interesting and feasible to implement.

The current WCA Regulations version is April 1, 2026, and the official scramble program is TNoodle-WCA-1.2.3, with the last official change on January 1, 2026.

How to use it like a cuber

The practical use is simple: treat the moving average as a momentum layer, not a final verdict. If you are scouting the field before a big championship, look at who is trending up over the last few averages instead of only chasing the biggest all-time single. If somebody has a short burst of strong results, the page will catch it. If that burst is fake, the five-average floor and the recency weighting should strip away most of the noise.

Speedcubing has always balanced history and experimentation, from the Cubic Circular newsletter that David Singmaster used to promote the community to the World Rubik’s Cube Championship in 1982, then into the WCA’s formal era.