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Team Vitality have won IEM Rio 2026 after a 3-0 demolition of Team Spirit in the grand final, and with it they have pulled off something no Counter-Strike roster has ever managed before. The French side are now the first team in history to win two ESL Grand Slams, and they have done it in back-to-back fashion, closing out Season 6 just months after wrapping up Season 5.

The win in Rio is Vitality’s fourth trophy of 2026 already, following IEM Katowice, IEM Kraków and BLAST Open Rotterdam earlier in the year. It also locks in a $1,000,000 bonus on top of the $295,000 first-place prize, handed out once a team collects four qualifying wins across the ESL Grand Slam cycle.

How The Grand Final Played Out

Spirit actually looked dangerous early on Mirage, opening up a 5-1 lead on the T side and sitting on an 11-8 advantage heading into the back end of the map. Vitality clawed it back, forced overtime, and that is when Robin “ropz” Kool took the game by the throat, stringing together multi-kills in four straight rounds to seal the opener.

Nuke followed a similar script. Spirit built an 8-4 lead on their CT side with Boris “magixx” Vorobiev and Myroslav “zont1x” Plakhotia carrying the fragging, but a disastrous run of pistol and anti-eco losses after the half completely collapsed their map. Vitality cruised the rest of the way to take it 13-10.

Dust2 was not really a contest. Vitality jumped to 5-0 on the CT side, only dropped one round after that outside of a late donk clutch, then nailed the second-half pistol with a clean A fake and closed the series out 13-5.

Danil “donk” Kryshkovets, tipped as the player most likely to swing a final of this size, only really showed up on the third map and finished with a 1.00 rating across the series. It was still the highest mark on Spirit, which tells you everything about how the rest of the squad performed.

The Numbers Behind The Sweep

Vitality’s top half of the server did most of the heavy lifting, with ropz and Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut posting 1.38 and 1.36 ratings respectively across the best-of-five. ZywOo was named MVP of the tournament, keeping up his usual standard of showing up in the moments that actually decide trophies.

Spirit’s Danil “donk” Kryshkovets ended the series with a 1.00 rating, and oddly enough that still made him his team’s best performer. apEX summed up his own side’s night fairly bluntly in the post-match interview, saying he was mad about the amount of rounds Vitality threw away even in a 3-0, and that he wants the team to be perfect every time they sit down.

Read More: ESL Offers $100,000 Bounty to Stop Vitality’s Second Grand Slam at IEM Rio 2026

The Road To A Second Grand Slam

This Grand Slam took Vitality eleven months to complete, starting all the way back at IEM Dallas in May 2025. Only three teams outside of Vitality managed to win an eligible event across the entire Season 6 cycle.

Season 6 Winners

  • IEM Dallas 2025: Vitality
  • IEM Cologne 2025: Spirit
  • ESL Pro League Season 22: Vitality
  • IEM Chengdu 2025: FURIA
  • IEM Kraków 2026: Vitality
  • ESL Pro League Season 23: Natus Vincere
  • IEM Rio 2026: Vitality

With four of those seven wins to their name, Vitality clear the four-trophy threshold that triggers the $1,000,000 Grand Slam bonus. They also become the only organisation ever to hold two of the things, after previously closing out Season 5 last year.

Every ESL Grand Slam Champion

  • Season 1 (2017-2018): Astralis
  • Season 2 (2019): Liquid
  • Season 3 (2019-2021): Natus Vincere
  • Season 4 (2021-2023): FaZe
  • Season 5 (2023-2025): Vitality
  • Season 6 (2025-2026): Vitality

ropz Sets His Own Individual Record

While the team record is the obvious story, ropz has quietly pulled off something of his own. The Estonian becomes the first player ever to win three ESL Grand Slams, having already taken one with FaZe in Season 4 before collecting Season 5 and Season 6 with Vitality. That puts him one clear of Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken, who won with Liquid in 2019 and FaZe in 2023.

apEX did not hold back on the historical framing afterwards either. “For me, a Grand Slam is harder to win than a Major,” he said. “There is no doubt that we are the best team in history.”

Runs From The Rest Of The Pack

Spirit reaching the grand final was still a bright spot in what has been an uneven 2026 for the Russian side, with deep runs at big events but not quite the results their roster strength suggests. They were dropped into the lower bracket early after losing to Falcons, then grinded back through Liquid, G2 and MOUZ to earn the final against Vitality.

Falcons themselves had the most Falcons tournament imaginable, beating both Spirit and Vitality in the group stage before losing to Spirit in the playoffs without much of a fight. That has reignited the rumours around another roster shake-up, with Finn “karrigan” Andersen’s name floated as a possible addition.

FURIA gave the home crowd exactly what they wanted in the group stage, knocking out NAVI and MOUZ on the way to the semifinals before running into Vitality. MOUZ snuck into the top six despite a brutal lead-up that saw them miss playoffs at both ESL Pro League Season 23 and BLAST Open Spring 2026. NAVI’s quarterfinal exit looked rough on paper but losing a best-of-three to this version of Vitality is about as honourable as defeats get right now.

What Comes Next For The Grand Slam

ESL’s Marc Winther, Director of Esports for Counter-Strike at the ESL FACEIT Group, confirmed after the final that a new Grand Slam cycle is starting immediately, with four eligible events running before the end of the year. That list includes the EPT Championship tournament attached to the IEM Cologne Major.

The short-term calendar does not give anyone much breathing room either. BLAST Rivals Spring 2026 runs from 29 April to 3 May, and the Cologne Major looms after that. If Vitality keep this level going, the next storyline writes itself: they could become the first team to win two Grand Slams inside the same calendar year, an achievement that did not look remotely plausible twelve months ago.