donk: "It's such an amazing feeling. I feel relief right now, very strong relief"

donk spoke to HLTV about his emotional reaction to completing the trifecta of the three most iconic trophies in Counter-Strike.

After Spirit became IEM Cologne champions with a straightforward 3-0 victory over MOUZ, Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets spoke to HLTV about the achievement and the strong debut with new addition Ivan "⁠zweih⁠" Gogin.

In a year and a half, donk and Spirit have now won the three most iconic trophies on the calendar, with the phenom himself clinching the MVP from all three.

And nowhere was donk's reaction more emotional than here in Cologne, where he was standing in disbelief, crying while the team celebrated the victory around the famous chalice.

"It was special because after we got top 16 the previous year, I was almost giving up," donk told HLTV about the emotional moment. "I did a lot of work and I had a lot of pain during this hard work, and now I feel like this hard work paid off."

"It's such an amazing feeling. I feel relief right now, very strong relief."

The 18-year-old also spoke about the convincing grand final and zweih's performance in his Big Event debut with the team, commending his new teammate for handling the high level of competition.

"We're playing at a very high level of CS right now where every team is special, is unique, and you need to play a lot against those teams to get used to their styles. For him, sure, it's hard, but he did good and that's why we won," donk said about zweih.

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donk, congratulations. An IEM Cologne champion - how does that sound?

Great. It's very nice. I won Katowice, I won a Major and now I won Cologne. The three most iconic tournaments. But the job is not finished.

We haven't seen you get emotional until now, in Katowice or in Shanghai. We've never seen you cry after such a victory - why was this one special?

It was special because after we got top 16 the previous year, I was almost giving up, literally. I did a lot of work and I had a lot of pain during this hard work, and now I feel like this hard work paid off. It's such an amazing feeling because I feel relief right now, very strong relief. I don't know what to say.

Tell me about zweih. It's your first big event with him and you won the tournament, reminiscent of when you guys played your first big event in Katowice. What do you think about how he played?

He played good. He's still adapting to the level, and in the first tournament with the new team, after like 11 days of practice, you're getting a new map that you weren't playing at all, you're getting MOUZ, Aurora, in playoffs we played NAVI and then again MOUZ. It's very strong teams.

We're playing at a very high level of CS right now where every team is special, is unique, and you need to play a lot against those teams to get used to their styles. For him, sure, it's hard, but he did good and that's why we won.

Why do you think today was so convincing, other than the comeback on Ancient? Was it down to preparation?

We had good preparation, yeah. I think we were great today, really great, the calls, the aiming, the communication was on a decent level. I think for them, the semi-final match against Vitality was the final for them, and they just couldn't bring the same energy from the semi-finals to the final. They just played not at 100% of their power.

I'm sure you were sad to see magixx go, but does this change and seeing that bear fruit immediately make you confident that, for the rest of the season, you can compete for trophies than in the first one?

About magixx leaving, now we have to see from distance, we need to play more tournaments to understand if we became better or not. But I see a bright future with zweih because he's a young player and he has good mechanical skills. All he needs to do is just to get used to it mentally to this high-level Counter-Strike.