sh1ro responds to retirement rumors: I still crave competition and will continue to persevere.

Spirit's star sniper Dmitry Sokolov (ID: sh1ro) clarified on Saturday that he currently has no plans to retire from professional esports.

Denis Zhukov (ID: deko) publicly stated in January that he did not rule out the possibility of sh1ro retiring at the end of the year. In response, sh1ro said on the RightClick podcast: "I did talk to deko about this, but he was basically just joking at the time. That happened last winter, and I don't know why it's being brought up again now."

He added, "We probably talked about this during the Perfect World Shanghai Major. Actually, he was the one who jokingly brought up the retirement thing first."

"I have no intention of retiring. Overall, I still crave competition and want to continue my professional career. I enjoy my current job and want to keep improving, so I will persevere. As for what happens next, it ultimately depends on the team's arrangements."

25-year-old sh1ro is a well-known Russian CS2 player who has played for several teams throughout his professional career, including Team7, FLuffy Gangsters, Vyalie Pitoni, Gambit, and Cloud9. During this time, he won the 2021 IEM Katowice, 2021 IEM Summer, 2021 BLAST Spring Grand Finals, and 2022 IEM Dallas for Gambit and Cloud9.

In December 2023, sh1ro officially joined Spirit. To date, he has played 407 maps and participated in 8842 rounds for Spirit, achieving an average personal rating of 1.18. He has also won 9 S-level tournament championships with the team, including the 2024 IEM Katowice, the 2024 BLAST Spring Finals, the BB Villa Cup Belgrade Season 2, the 2024 Perfect World Shanghai Major, the 2025 BLAST Bounty Season 1 Finals, the 2025 PGL Astana, the 2025 IEM Cologne, the 2025 BLAST Bounty Season 2 Finals, and the 2026 PGL Astana.

Image source: Internet