For the players, and for many spectators, it was a tense final.
Two powerful athletes fought it out head-to-head, with onlookers around the world glued to their screens in silent
anticipation. But this was no regular sports tournament's climax; it was the final of the
Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), the culmination of a year's worth
of qualifiers worldwide, and the game everyone was watching was
Painkiller.
After losing early on in the last round of qualifiers, Johnathan
"Fatal1ty" Wendel made a comeback and faced off against
Sander "fnatic.Vo0" Kaasjager for the final. Having won 5 out of the 9 worldwide CPL events, Vo0
was seeded first and many expected him to come out victorious—however, Fatal1ty pulled out all the stops and beat Vo0
in four straight games for a fantastic win, pocketing the $150,000 top prize. The final was
broadcast via MTV—and may be replayable—adding to the
sports-like atmosphere, with gamers on IRC and voice channels worldwide screaming in unison at a suicide or a sneaky
escape.
Gaming as a viable spectator sport? Whatever next.
[Ed: Unfamiliar with British phrasing? "Whatever next" is a simple abbreviation of the
more unwieldy "Whatever will those crazy cool cats think of next?" — watch this space for more in the "British English
101" series!]




















(Page 1) Reader Comments
http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/
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That line really made me laugh... athletes... hahaha.
Congrats to Fatal1ty.
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I check pages like Gamespot and IGN almost every day and read at least through the main site, but didn't even know this took place... So the news either was either not important enough for them to highlight, or it wasn't even there... I'm pissed right now...
Well thx for the news either way... Gonna watch the replay now...
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