Great weather, great history and great computer gaming – that’s what the ESWC Masters of Athens tournament had to offer for its competitors. Twenty-two year old Sebastian "Spart1e" Siira attended the event with the aim of simply beating Russia’s Cooller again. However, once he got into the motion of things he soon surpassed his own expectations and those of the community.

In a thrilling afternoon of competition, Siira became the first person to force Alexei 'Cypher' Yanyshevsky out of a tournament in 2008. He then continued his form in the final against SK Gaming’s Shane “Rapha” Hendrixson but was narrowly defeated over a three map game. All in all, Siira is becoming a rising star in Quake 3, but where did he come from?

Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your personality?
Hi. My name is Sebastian "Spart1e" Siira and I’m 22 years old. A friend would describe me as a happy, nice and fun person, but also really lazy.

Is your personality in-game different to outside the game?
I think it's almost the same.

You are something of a rising star in the Quake 3 scene. Can you tell us a bit about how you came to play Quake 3 and play at the level you do today?
I remember the good old days when I 1st started to play. It was the fun mode FreezeTag that made me start with q3. Since I didn't have any internet connection at home I only played at LANs and at my dads place until i finally got a good connection December 2004. But it was 1st in 2006 that I really started to play 1on1, because of CPL I guess. Today when Quake3 still are played I just keep playing the game I love.

Why do you continue to play Quake 3 even though it is what many would call "a dated game?" Do you play for the competition scene? The money?
Biggest reason why I still play is that I get the chance to travel to other countries and play tournaments. It's always nice to go to some warmer/nice country. But it's also because I enjoy the game so much and I feel good when doing something I am good at.

During your childhood did you ever imagine being a professional gamer?
No, but i dreamt a lot of being good at anything, even win a lot of cash and just buy everything. In my dreams money would make me so happy.

Before ESWC Masters of Athens you had defeated some big names in the scene, yet never placed very high. Was this difficult for you to cope with or did it motivate you to perform better next time?
I knew I was good enough to give any top player something to work for. I have been pretty unlucky in my previous tournaments, but I think my not so very good results has been because of me being inexperienced and not knowing what to do to actually win the important games.

How did you prepare for Athens? Boot camp? Extra training hours?
I played mainly with Sombra, but also a few games with other players such as strenx, noctis, fox, av3k, Rapha. While I was in Athens I just concentrated on my games.

You were considered an under dog at the recent Master of Athens competiton, did you consider yourself as one? What were your expectations for the competition?
Since I won vs Cooller at Gamegune I would have been really disappointed if I lost to him in Athens. At least 8 of the players in the tournament are the best quake3 players. So didn't really except me to be top4, but I had my game working the 2nd day and I made it.

Thanks to you, Athens is the only tournament this year which Cypher has not won. What was going through your head as you played your semi-final match? Did you expect to win?
I was really motivated in this game. I thought my chances were 60/40 to win. I felt I had a good day and I just tried to play a way he would never expect me to play.

When you defeated Cypher you secured your first ever place in a final match. How did it feel to do this? Was there any extra pressure on you because it was your first final?
Actually, I played a final vs Jibo at CPL Nordic 2006. But maybe that final doesn’t count because it was in Sweden vs a Chinese Russian? To tell the truth, I never felt so relaxed that I felt before/during the final. I was just happy to be top2. But since there were so many spectators I wanted to show a nice match. Could have done a better job for the specs, next time!

When you convincingly won the first map of the final, what were your thoughts?
Oh no, not Pt-4, fucking shit map! And, oooh noo, not nodm9, my timing hasn’t been working any good this event :(.

Moving onto the second map, pro-Q3Tourney4. This match was extremely close with you and Rapha swapping lead four times and drawing five times before Rapha took the win. How difficult was this game for you?
I never really saw Rapha play, so didn’t knew how he was going to play. Well I lost a close map, not much to say.

The final map, no-DM9 is a map which you are generally strong on. Once again it was a close game, although not quite shown by the scores. What went wrong and inevitably lead to Rapha winning the tournament?
We started off the final map pretty fast, too fast I guess. When the score was 3-2 for me an admin came and said to me that we could start. I answered him that we already started and I was thinking for myself, "Maybe we should have waited?" Before the admin came I had the map control and actually had all items, red armor, two yellow armors and the mega health. But lost the times and was w8ing for the wrong armor. This was one of mistakes. I felt even before the tournament that my timing wasn’t very good at nodm9, and didn’t play my best nodm9 game in the final.

Rapha played really good; it's hard to play a player like him. He won this fight, but Spartaaaa are really hungry for revenge.

With Masters of Athens behind you, where do you intend to go from here?
I hope to attend as many tournaments as possible for the next year. My hopes are for Quake 3 to be used as long as possible. But I think I would play QuakeLive also if it replaces Quake 3.

Images courtesy of esreality