Qikert ends playing career and becomes Spirit Academy coach

IEM Rio Major champion Aleksei "Qikert" Golubev has retired as a player and will lead Spirit Academy as its new coach. The 27-year-old Kazakh played professionally for nearly a decade.

Aleksei "Qikert" Golubev has ended his playing career and taken over as coach of Spirit Academy. The move closes a spell of almost ten years in which the Kazakh player became a Major champion with Outsiders at IEM Rio Major 2022.

The 27-year-old also played in the final of StarLadder Major Berlin with AVANGAR. He attended seven Majors in total, the latest being StarLadder Budapest Major with MIBR.

Qikert left MIBR at the start of the year and later signed with 1win. With that team he won MPKBK CIS LAN Season 4, adding a 12th trophy to his collection. Earlier titles include BLAST Pro Series Moscow 2019, ESL Challenger Rotterdam and ESL Challenger Katowice 2023.

Spirit's academy has been a steady source of talent, with its lineups helping develop players such as donk, zont1x, Magnojez, FL4MUS and S1ren. The previous leader of the team, Vladislav "Flash_1" Bykov, stays with the organization and will coach Spirit Academy White.

The Spirit Academy roster now consists of Kiryasoo, s1nside, VILBy, k0gaSs and Netrix, with Qikert as coach.