Esport: the French team Vitality wins the Major of Counter-Strike in Bercy – France

The French team Vitality won, this Sunday, in Bercy, the Major of Counter-Strike, the flagship competition of esports, in front of 12,000 unleashed fans who came to attend the ultimate major tournament on the famous shooting game, ahead of the release of a sequel this summer. In the final, the Vitality team, led by its captain Dan “apEx” Madesclaire and the superstar Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, dominated the Germans of the GamerLegion (16-6, 16-13) to win the first Major in its history. . “Last year was very difficult for us, but we set ourselves the goal of winning this Major at home, we believed in it until the end and that’s it, we did it”, exulted ” apEX”, 30 years old and veteran of the team, after shedding a few tears while hugging his teammates.

As a symbol, it was the two Frenchmen of the team who eliminated, during the last round of the competition, the five characters of the opposing team to seal the victory. The Lensois “ZywOo”, 22, twice voted best player in the world (2019, 2020) was voted best player of the tournament.

The 2nd victory for a French structure

The experience of Dane Peter “Dupreeh” Rasmussen, recruited in January 2022 and who this Sunday became the only player in history to have won five major titles on Counter-Strike, was also invaluable to Vitality, which led 10-5 in the 2nd round before regaining the upper hand.

Founded in 2013, Vitality became on Sunday the 2nd French structure to have won a Major in Counter-Strike, the equivalent of a Grand Slam title in Tennis, nine years after the crowning of the Team LDLC team in Stockholm. It was the first Counter-Strike Major organized in France.

Valve, the American publisher of the game, had planned an endowment of 500,000 euros for the winner. After ten years of competitions organized around the world, the publisher has announced the release of Counter-Strike 2 this summer, which will become the new standard in tournaments. The principle of this historic esports shooter will remain the same, however: two teams compete to detonate a bomb or kill all their opponents before the end of a two-minute round.