00:00Race after race, the little red marble just couldn't stop winning.
00:03He seemed like he was impossible to beat.
00:06But when critics took a closer look,
00:08they started to suspect that red number three wasn't really a marble at all.
00:13See, red number three had blasted onto the yellows marble run scene way back in 2015.
00:18In his championship debut, he came second,
00:21and only a year later he was at the top of the championship leaderboard.
00:25But it wasn't long before people started questioning the legitimacy of red number three's wins.
00:30And the real smoking gun came in 2018 with a post on the r slash Marblelympics subreddit titled,
00:37I don't think red number three is a marble.
00:40The revelation included screenshots from the start of red's first winning race,
00:45pointing out a strange hole that appeared to be in the marble,
00:48along with undeniable proof as to where that hole originated.
00:51Red number three was a keychain, not a glass marble.
00:55Immediately, the Marblelympics subreddit was in an uproar.
00:59People theorized that the marble had a different surface, different material,
01:02and likely weighed more, or maybe even less, than his fellow competitors,
01:06thus giving him some sort of unfair advantage.
01:09And pretty soon, the scandal became so loud and unavoidable
01:12that the race coordinator had to break their silence.
01:16But even though Yella's response assured everybody that red number three
01:19met the same standards that all the other competitors met,
01:22the debate in the community continued raging on.
01:25And all the while, red number three continued dominating the championships year after year.
01:30That was until one fateful day in 2020,
01:33when this post appeared on the Yella's Marble Run's Twitter account.
01:37The criticism and drama had clearly become too much to bear.
01:41Red number three was going to become a glass marble.
01:44The reactions from the community were mixed.
01:46Some people celebrated what they saw as a return to fairness and equity in the competition,
01:51while others felt like he'd succumbed to the public pressure
01:54forcing him to conform and be like all the other marbles.
01:58People still hoped that red number three could come back
02:00and continue performing at an elite level.
02:03But when he returned to the track,
02:04it was obvious he'd lost what made him truly special.
02:08In the years that followed,
02:09red number three often wallowed at the back of the pack.
02:12And eventually, his fan base started to move on,
02:15convinced that his glory days were over.
02:18But in 2026, whether it be seeing the disappointment of his fans,
02:21or maybe due to an accidental mix-up by Yella,
02:25red number three rediscovered his true identity.
02:28He gave up the glass body that he'd been trapped in
02:30ever since his surgery six years earlier,
02:33and he fully accepted who he was,
02:35a resin marble.
02:37Red came into the first race of the season,
02:38determined to reclaim his crown
02:40and remind the other competitors
02:42just what he was truly capable of.
02:44He launched himself into the lead on the very first turn,
02:47and no matter how hard they tried,
02:49there was nothing the other marbles could do to pass him.
02:52He dominated that first race back,
02:54and just like old times,
02:55he went on to win the entire championship once again.
