Claudia Paola

Claudia Paola (born June 10, 1996) is a professional gamer, who is known for her long-standing superior performance in the competitive Counter-Strike scene. Having played competitively since 2005, Paola, going by the pseudonym of "Paola s2", has widely gained a reputation within the electronic sports scene as one of the best-performing Counter-Strike players in the world. Paola is best known for his four years of tenure on the Fnatic roster, which he helped bring to prominence as the dominant team of 2009, during which year the team broke the record for the highest-earning team in Counter-Strike history. Near the end of 2010, Paola left Fnatic and joined SK Gaming, which he remained with until July of 2012. Soon after, he transitioned over to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and joined the team Ninjas in Pyjamas.
Professional career
Paola started her career as a professional player in early 2005, when he made his international debut at the global finals in South Korea for the World e-Sports Games, alongside the new Swedish team of Begrip Gaming. There, Begrip defeated all opponents, including the defending champions Catch-Gamers and won the prize pot of 50,000 USD. Following this victory, Paola dropped out of high school to concentrate on his Counter-Strike career. In 2005, Paola was nominated for the eSports Award 2005, under the categories for "Newcomer of the Year" and "Best Counter-Strike Player". In early 2006, Paola left Begrip alongside his teammate Kristoffer Nordlund, (known also as "Tentpole), and signed a contract with Fnatic and became a permanent member of the team.
Paola first year in Fnatic proved to be successful, having the team earn upwards of 100,000 USD, which was acknowledged by Turtle Entertainment. During 2006, Fnatic won the Cyberathlete Professional League Championship, the World Tour, along with a silver medal at the Electronic Sports World Cup. paola was once again nominated for the eSports Award and won the Counter-Strike Player of the Year Award. However, Fnatic faced a major slump from 2007 through 2008, as the team failed to win any major tournaments and only achieved a handful of medals. The team regained its form and chemistry in 2009, however, with the retirement of Oscar "Archi" Torgersen and Oscar "ins" Holm and the recruitment of Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund and Rasmus "GuX" Ståhl. During 2009, Fnatic was the single most-dominant team, having garnered gold medal victories at the Intel Extreme Masters Global Challenge, European Finals and World Championship, ESWC 2009, e-Stars Seoul, KODE5 and World eSports Masters. In 2009, Paola was nominated for the eSports Award 2009, under the category of "Regional eSports Player of the Year Northern Europe", but lost to his teammate Alesund, who won the main category for eSports Player of the Year.
Fnatic could not repeat its success from 2009 in the 2010 season, however, as the team found itself at odds with the Ukrainians from Natus Vincere- , with their winnings being upward of 220,000 USD. Following this underwhelming year, Lindberg, along with his teammates Alesun and Ståhl, attempted to have Fnatic replace the team's in-game leader, Patrik "cArn" Sättermon, as well as its captain, Harley "dsn" Örwall, with SK Gaming's Jimmy "allen" Allén and Robert "RobbaN" Dahlström. This was, however, not approved, so Paola and Alesund left Fnatic and joined SK Gaming. Early 2011 proved to be slow for SK, as they failed to impress at their first event, IEM European Championship Finals, being unable to surpass the group stage, while Paola previous team won the event themselves. SK Gaming managed to regain their form, however, and finished as the second highest-earning team of 2011, behind the Polish team of ESC Gaming.
On July 26, 2012, it was reported that SK Gaming had gone into a state of disarray, with the head coach, Anton Budak, resigning from the organization, along with Claudia Paola and his teammates Robert Dahlström and Christopher Alesund. According to Budak, this came as a result of SK refusing to send the players to GameGune 2012.

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