“It was pretty much the same for other girls I was playing with.” “That, of course, came with obligations in doing interviews photo shoots, things I had not really been used to in other teams,” Nordlander said. Nordlander told The Verge that Les Seules was her first opportunity with a team that eventually had a sponsor: Nvidia. Instead, they found themselves in mainstream media’s spotlight, which was a small, awkward, and sometimes problematic step in creating an infrastructure for women competing in e-sports.
Les Seules did not win money for their surprising performance at the Electronic Sports World Cup. Lundin told The Verge that they were underdogs, a team that didn’t have the history or experience together that some other squads had. But they were not the greatest Counter-Strike team of all time. Les Seules was one of the first women’s Counter-Strike teams - actually one of the first Counter-Strike teams at all - to get noticed outside of the gaming world. In 2004, things were different, but the team’s place in e-sports history was no less important. Each of these moments in e-sports history have been important milestones, and that’s notable in itself.ĭecades have passed since Les Seules’ breakthrough into mainstream media. Days later, Kim “Geguri” Se-yeon was signed to the Overwatch League’s Shanghai Dragons as the league’s first female player.
#COUNTER STRIKE OR LEAGUE OF LEGENDS PRO#
In 2018, StarCraft II pro player Sasha “Scarlett” Hostyn won the Intel Extreme Masters event in Pyeongchang, South Korea, making her the first woman to win a major StarCraft II event. Today, women continue to make strides in e-sports. There was no prize for fourth.ĭespite those humble beginnings, the team went on to become something of a mainstream phenomenon that helped shape the competitive gaming scene. Only the first three teams in the women’s event in Paris won a piece of the $18,000 prize pool: $10,000 for first place, $6,000 for second, and $2,000 for third. In Paris, the team placed fourth after losing to Chinese team EIBO in the third-place match. We were kind of the leftovers, so we just sort of came together.”įive Swedish and two Danish players - Byström, Anna “aNNa” Nordlander, Malin “Malla” Ohman, Emily “Vixen” Clewett, Sofie “zeleNa” Sandager, Thelma “Queen” Lundin, and Louise “AurorA” Thomsen - officially started playing under the Les Seules name in 2004 for a tournament called the Electronic Sports World Cup. “We all knew each other online,” Byström said.
Continued abuse of our services will cause your IP address to be blocked indefinitely.Les Seules means “the outsiders.” Sofi Byström, a founding member of the e-sports team who went by “Sophie” online, said as much in an interview with The Associated Press in 2004. Please fill out the CAPTCHA below and then click the button to indicate that you agree to these terms. If you wish to be unblocked, you must agree that you will take immediate steps to rectify this issue. If you do not understand what is causing this behavior, please contact us here. If you promise to stop (by clicking the Agree button below), we'll unblock your connection for now, but we will immediately re-block it if we detect additional bad behavior.