Vitality fight past Spirit to win IEM Rio 2026
Vitality has beaten Team Spirit in the final of IEM Rio 2026 which saw apEX and co. lift the title in the Farmasi Arena in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The 3-0 win also means that Vitality have won ESL Grand Slam Season VI and have become the first team to win back-to-back ESL Grand Slams. As Vitality continued to dominate, the man who kicked off the dominance with him joining the team, ropz, became the first-ever player to win three ESL Grand Slams. The IEM Rio 2026 title also gives Vitality a prize money of $125,000 for the tournament also with a $1,000,000 prize money for winning the ESL Grand Slam Season VI.
Mirage was the opening map of the series as Spirit looked to punish Vitality on a map that hasn't been as dominant as the others for Vitality and it seemed to work early on as Spirit went 5-1 up with tN1R stepping up for the Russian squad. Vitality fought back to tie up the opening half and after what looked like a dominant CT hold once the guns were out from Spirit, ropz woke up late to help Vitality push Mirage to overtime where they held on for a 16-13 win. ropz topped the charts on the opening map with 29 kills and a 1.50 rating.
Vitality's pick of Nuke saw tN1R, zont1x and magixx give Spirit a four-round lead before a solid CT side from Vitality including a big eco round win, led by their captain apEX and ropz saw them steal a 13-10 win and it was ropz and ZywOo top fragging on Nuke with 23 and 20 kills respectively to see Vitality go 2-0 up in the BO5 final. Spirit's second pick of Dust2 kicked off with a crisp and clean triple from ZywOo's pistol that built the platform for a strong defensive hold again it it was a last-second 1v2 from donk in the final round of the half that saw Spirit keep Vitality's lead to four. Vitality ran circles around Spirit in the second pistol and a clean T side saw apEX's boys ease to a 13-5 win to pick up yet another 3-0 win in a BO5 final and win IEM Rio 2026.
With a title in South America secured, Vitality now head to North America for BLAST Rivals 2026 Season 1 which will take place in Fort Worth, Texas and post that will be seen in action at IEM Atlanta 2026.
SpiritVitality| Spirit |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 3.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Danil 'donk' Kryshkovets |
49 - 59 | -10 | 77.5 | 67.1% | 1.00 |
| Boris 'magixx' Vorobiev |
34 - 50 | -16 | 57.7 | 68.6% | 0.92 |
 Myroslav 'zont1x' Plakhotia |
38 - 52 | -14 | 60.1 | 65.7% | 0.87 |
 Andrey 'tN1R' Tatarinovich |
39 - 55 | -16 | 61.1 | 55.7% | 0.83 |
| Dmitry 'sh1ro' Sokolov |
39 - 51 | -12 | 60.6 | 70.0% | 0.77 |
| Vitality |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 3.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Robin 'ropz' Kool |
62 - 35 | +27 | 93.4 | 82.9% | 1.38 |
 Mathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut |
59 - 39 | +20 | 83.8 | 78.6% | 1.36 |
 William 'mezii' Merriman |
50 - 40 | +10 | 74.6 | 85.7% | 1.12 |
| Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire |
54 - 42 | +12 | 79.7 | 71.4% | 1.12 |
 Shahar 'flameZ' Shushan |
42 - 44 | -2 | 61.0 | 84.3% | 1.07 |
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