(Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)
Yesterday was a huge day for Scotland in Valorant esports, with Sentinels assistant coach Drew ‘DrewSpark’ Spark-Whitworth winning Valorant Masters Madrid with his team.
Sentinels celebrated on stage with the trophy after victory over Gen.G Esports in a thrilling 3-2 grand final at the Madrid Arena in Spain.
DrewSpark, pictured above, could be seen wearing a kilt on stage as he lifted the trophy in what was a massive day for Scotland in Valorant.
Earlier in the day, Riot Games had revealed Valorant’s first non-binary agent, Scottish character Clove, in a separate announcement. Then DrewSpark went and represented Scotland on the big stage.
DrewSpark said after the Valorant Masters Madrid victory: “I love this team and I’m proud of all the hard work we all put in for this. Feeling on top of the world right now.”
Esports News UK has reached out to DrewSpark and will hopefully have some more comments from him later this week to add to this article.
The coach, who previously worked in Rainbow Six Siege as an analyst with XSET, transitioned to Valorant a couple of years ago.
The UK Valorant community rallied around Sentinels’ assistant coach to celebrate the victory and Scottish representation in Valorant esports.
BoDork, the Social Media and Esports Strategy Manager for MistGames/Valorant Challengers North, said: “NA might have won once today, but Scotland won twice today.”
Other Scottish esports talent billieidk and KairoCasts also commented:
Sentinels’ winning roster consists of zekken (USA), Sacy (Brazil), TenZ (Canada), johnqt (Morocco) and Zellsis (USA), plus substitute player curry (USA).
DrewSpark has been working alongside Sentinels head coach kaplan (USA).
The Sentinels Twitter account recognised the coaches after the win, naming them as the ‘unsung heroes’ of the team:
Credit must of course also be given to Gen.G for coming so close to winning Valorant Masters Madrid, with the South Korean roster consisting of Meteor, t3xture, Lakia, Munchkin and Karon, plus coaches solo and HSK.
Both Gen.G and Sentinels topped the swiss stage table before making their way through the playoffs.
Gen.G had actually defeated Sentinels 2-1 in the upper bracket final, before Sentinels beat Paper Rex 3-1 in the lower bracket final to book a rematch, before getting revenge on Gen.G 3-2 in the grand final.
UK talent at the event also included Yinsu, Bren, hypoc, Pansy, Sideshow and Tombizz, plus Irish producers Andy Power and Brian Soden.
Elsewhere at Valorant Masters Madrid, UK player Benjyfishy apologised after his Valorant Masters Madrid exit for ‘getting a bit too excited’ during the season.
UK star Boaster, on the other hand, sadly failed to qualify for Madrid with Fnatic, despite telling Esports News UK recently he wanted to win all three major Valorant titles in 2024 in this Boaster interview.
The Masters Madrid grand final also became the most-watched Valorant series of all time, with 1.6m+ peak viewers, putting it ahead of Valorant Champions 2022’s 1.5m.
The next VCT leagues will take place soon, with VCT EMEA Stage 1 running from April 3rd 2024, before VCT Masters Shanghai approaches next on May 23rd 2024.
Related article: Riot proposes VCT-like model to League of Legends esports teams
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
