Last week we gave the nominees of the eSports Award 2009 the chance to advertise themselves to the academy, and give out a "for your consideration" statement. All in all 40 different players and editors as well as 20 teams and organisations enter the race for this year's trophies. Every nominee or his manager could send in a statement. Here is what they had to say:

Kang Nae 'Orangemarmalade' Hyun - Nominated for Newcomer / Breakthrough of the Year

"I am very happy that we have two nominations. It won’t be easy to win it but we did our best to get there. Thanks to everyone. This was a personal goal for me and im happy to have achieved it."

Buttonbashers.WoW - Nominated for eSports Team of the Year

Statement by Michael 'Pii' Groen, Manager of ButtonBashers:
"After picking up our current WoW Arena team we knew great things would come to our organization, but being nominee amongst such great talented teams and players was beyond our imagination. We are enormously proud of our team and we look really forward to the summer events that we got planned ahead with the team."

Jonathan 'razMKi' Baker - Nominated for Best Call of Duty Player

Statement by Michael 'ODEE' O'Dell, Manager of Team Dignitas
"raz is one of the most talented players I have worked with whilst managing Team Dignitas. He has proved that is an outstanding talent over several years through the Call of Duty series. raz is legendary in the community due to his immense gaming presence but also because he is just one of the nicest guys you could meet in gaming. The past year for our team has been extremely successful for our COD4 team and raz has proved he is the rock of the team by winning the MVP for the EPS UK Season II Finals."

Marcus 'Wind' Ho - Nominated for Scene Journalist 2009

"Dear panel of judges,

Despite being conscripted into the army about a year ago, I’d invariably make time to read the latest happenings on e-sports. My army peers are occasionally baffled whenever I reframe a conversation subject to center on e-sports, a topic that seems so nerdy yet somehow, they’d always find it interesting.

Why? No one really knows, but I think it’s passion. Ever since I started writing for e-sports, my passion is the main empowering force that drove me on in spite of the many problems that I personally face such as a low to nothing salary, flamers, etc. While I’m sure many may relate to this, few have truly dedicated themselves to e-sports. But that is of course, understandable given that many of these guys still have a real job outside.

In many ways, e-sports has changed my life. With myMYM, I was able to attend events across the world, build a sizeable network of contacts, and most importantly, express my opinions as a writer on a massive platform to millions of readers.

My submitted article, entitled ‘Dollars & Cents behind Warcraft’ is a testament of these 3 facets. I hope that this article has, in some small ways brought insights and excitement to your e-sports life.

Thank you."

Gennadii Veselkov - Nominated for eSports Photo of the Year 2009

"I am glad to welcome all Academy members and happy to be nominated with my work "eSports love" for such a prestigious prize, a sort of the Oscar in esport world!

My story as a photographer is rather unusual. The fact is that I came in photography only three years ago, having devoted more than ten years to eSport. I began my way in this area as a StarCraft and Quake gamer, and then engaged in organization of events in Internet cafes. At that time I was really crazy about esport and decided to tie my whole life with it.

During the next years, my persistence yielded fruit, and in 2003 I was already a judge at the WCG's final in Ukraine. After a year, I became the main judge of WCG in Ukraine and remain at this position for six years running. Despite the fact that WCG is the main tournament in our country, we also conduct elimination contests for such tournaments as ESWC and KODE 5, where I have also been played the role of the main judge all these years.

Nevertheless, my activity in esport goes beyond this. As a deputy director of the largest in Eastern Europe network of internet clubs "C-club", I am engaged in organization of many local esport events and support of several Ukrainian teams and gamers.

Besides that, as a chief editor of the largest Ukrainian esport site, I do my best for coverage and popularization of esport in our country and in Eastern Europe as well. And, of course, photography. I can't imagine my life without it! For me it is rather hobby that job, but I bring camera to all events and many of my photos, a kind of the Ukrainian esport chronicle, you may find on our site www.gameinside.ua"

Pedro Moreno 'LucifroN' Durán - Nominated for Best Warcraft 3 Player and Newcomer / Breakthrough of the Year

"I think I deserve the breakthrough of the year award because of the following reasons:

I played my first international LAN event on September 2008, it was a tournament with the best European players in which I finished 3rd. One month later I attended the BlizzCon Grand Finals, where I finished 2nd, beating experienced players such as Lyn in the winner bracket final. From then on, after a top5-8 at WCG, I managed to win two important tournaments:

The first one was the prestigious international tournament ESWC Masters of Cheonan, a tournament which included the best Warcraft III players in the world (Moon, Grubby, Lyn, Fly100%, Sky, TH000, Happy, TeD, to name a few)

I managed to pass through the groupstage in what you could call the “death-group” with Sky and Lyn on it. After the groupstage I managed to beat TH000, Fly and Lyn, none of them had lost a single game during the entire tournament until I played against them.

One month later I played again the BlizzCon European Qualifier Tournament, this time I won the tournament, not dropping a single map until the Grand final, where I managed to beat Grubby."

"I think I deserve the Warcraft III player of the year award for the following reasons:

After qualifying for Blizzcon 2008 over experienced players such as ToD or Grubby, I managed to make it to the grand final through the winner bracket, beating players such as Lyn(on winner-bracket final) and Happy.

After BlizzCon 2008, I managed to finish first on WCG’s death-group, which included players such as Korean WC3-representant FoCuS and Germany’s 3 times EPS winner XlorD.

Then on 2009 I managed to win ESWC Masters of Cheonan, the only tournament during this period which included 8 of the 10 best WarCraft III players at the moment (Fly100%, TH000, Sky, Grubby, Lyn, TeD, Happy and Moon), after doing it through the group-stage where I had to face Lyn, Sky and XlorD, I defeated on the bracket China’s star TH000, PGL current champion Fly100% and Blizzcon 2008 champion Lyn.

The last tournament of this period was the BlizzCon European Qualifier 2009, which I managed to win not dropping a single map on the winner bracket (where I played against players such as SaSe or Grubby), then defeating Grubby once again on the grand final."

Justin 'prank`' DeMara - Nominated for Best Call of Duty Player

"First off, I would like to thank everyone who brought my name forward to become part of this elite group of nominees. Being the only North American in the field leaves me at an extreme disadvantage as the majority of the community looking at me has only seen me play on demos and the rare international events that I have been able to attend. I want to start off by saying that I have been at the top of the Call of Duty series since early 2006 and have stayed there by out sniping and out-smarting any opponent I have come across. I have claimed 13 Call of Duty titles and placed top 3 in nearly every event/league that I have competed in. In last years European events I was fortunate enough to be a part of a great team that took home the Antwerp Festival title and 10,000 euros in prize money. The following week my team and I took third in the experience in Denmark. In these events I had a chance to play against the players nominated for this award, and I feel I played consistent throughout the events as I have through my entire Call of Duty career, out-smarting my opponents and dominating them with my superior aim. Winning this award would mean a lot to me and put the icing on the cake in terms of accomplishments in my Call of Duty run. Thank you again for your consideration. The link provided below is a full list of my accomplishments and earnings."

HLTV.org - Nominated for Best eSports Coverage 2009

Statement by Per 'Nomad' Lambæk, Chief Technology Officer of HLTV.org
"When handing out the award for best esport coverage it is very easy to consider a site that does more than one game, but at HLTV.org we have always tried to avoid the jack of all trades, master of none mantra, and instead focus on what we find the most exciting esports game out there. We furthermore firmly believe that the world needs independent English coverage sites where users from all countries can gather and interact in a global community, instead of fractured local communities.

HLTV.org does not only provide on-site coverage from all big CS events, we also provide the HLTV infrastructure for nearly all broadcasted top matches in the world. It is easy to forget a vitial thing as HLTV coverage as it is more infrastructure than direct coverage, but without it the CS 1.6 scene would suffer greatly. This also means that we are the produceres of virtually all HLTV demos out there, therefore demosections and matchpages across all other coverage sites are fed with content from us. Therefore when considering HLTV.org for an award, think not only about what we provide, but about what would be missing were we not around."

Teamliquid.net - Nominated for Best eSports Coverage 2009

Statement by Trevor 'Manifesto7' Allen
"TeamLiquid is proud to be under consideration for the Best eSports Coverage Award. The StarCraft scene in Korea is the largest and most developed example of professional gaming. Bringing this scene to the entire world is what TeamLiquid has dedicated itself to.

Although there are many challenges in covering tournaments afar, and in a different language, our site has evolved to meet these challenges. Our site includes numerous features to serve both the casual and hardcore fan. These features include among other things: live streaming of every game, written recaps of five different leagues, and a statistical/VOD database that covers more than 20,000 games stretching back almost a decade.

Best of all, TeamLiquid is a community. The site is run by passionate volunteers who work not for money, but because they are fans themselves. This leads to a high level of quality and passion which shows in our work. Beyond the staff, our forum members constantly update with new translations, analysis, and hype. When both staff and members contribute, the community grows from within. After all, eSports is best experienced with thousands of other enthusiastic fans. This is what TeamLiquid is all about."

Laurent Prost - Nominated for eSports Photo of the Year 2009

"Dear Members of the Academy,

I have been photographing eSports events for more than one year now, in five different countries, and all I can say is that it is extremely difficult to sum up everything in one or even two pictures. Most of the time, we only remember who won, sometimes who lost, and nothing else. Of course, victory is what we are all fighting for, but there is so much more than this...

As a player, what I like the most are those brief moments of intense relief when you manage to win a particularly difficult round, even if it will not give you the final victory. This is really what eSports is about, because everyone can enjoy such moments, from the most unknown player to the greatest pro-gamer, and this is what I wanted to capture in Ex6TenZ’s picture.

But like “real” sports, eSports is also about going beyond yourself to get the victory, and the picture of Moon is the perfect illustration of a man who just did so. All his exhaustion and his sadness after his defeat remember us that eSports is always a tough fight – even if you are the most talented of your kind..."

Replays.net - Nominated for Best eSports Coverage 2009

Statement by Asheng of Replays.net
"Replays.Net is the most professional and biggest Chinese eSports portal and we provide competitive gaming replays, latest news, strategy reports, interview with pro-gamers (star gamers), the most specific gaming replay analyse tool and other interesting info. Replays.net is a computer game community with over 1,000,000 registered users today.
Current contents include: Warcraft III, Starcraft, Starcraft 2, Diablo III, DotA Allstars and side-websites covering other mainstream competitive games. Replays.Net emphasizes on (values) the experience of users and shares videos and replays of competitive games with eSport-enthusiasts in the world. Apart from that we also provide latest news from the scene, strategy reports, interviews with players and other services.

Replays.Net has become a global brand –as the winner of the Best eSports Coverage 2008,we are gradually playing a more influential part in the whole eSports community，as well as the only nominated 2009 Best eSports Website Coverage in China."

Kara 'Karaface' Leung - Nominated for eSports Photo of the Year 2009

"Being nominated for the eSports Photo of the Year is a great and humbling honor for me, given the fact that I only started doing eSports specific photography since May 31st of this year, about a month and a half. Perhaps what humbles me most with the nomination is that the photo was taken at my 2nd eSports event, only a week’s experience into the genre. For the fighting game community to embrace my photos in such a short period of time, it is my hope is that my nominated photo can bring the due exposure the scene truly deserves.

When I photograph eSports I look both for emotion and intimacy. The emotion and drama that naturally occurs in eSports, whether it be the elation of victory, the solemn look of a loss or a tense moment while the match escalates. Intimacy of the scene, I believe that photographs have the potential to capture more of the subject than a video can. A photograph has done its job when it shows what a video cannot, be it the furrows of a player frustrated at his opponent or a player's face up-close in jubilation. It is when a photograph captures and places a moment in stasis, allows the viewer to see more in-depth the intricacies of the moment otherwise unseen that a photograph truly shows the intimacy of its story.

Being the sole photographer nominated from North America shows the deteriorating state of eSports in our region. My hope is in future iteration of the awards, our scene can recover from its current state, so that American eSports photography will be represented by more than a sole nominee.

Thank you for your consideration."

Jonas Gebhardt - Nominated for eSports Photo of the Year 2009

"Dear Members of the Academy,

After I attended more then 20 events within less then two years all around the globe and have been in some months more busy with covering them then sleeping in my own bed at home, ten-thousands of shots and more then 200 videos have been taken and produced though my nominated photo is what I always strived for: creating a picture that shows more then all words can ever describe.

My nominated photo marks the last event I have been to so far and I consider it as not only a personal memorial for my work within the last years but also as a photo that unites so much energy and passion. It delivers all the way from China to the rest of the world, to thousands of eSport fans, a unique and very intense feeling which shows without any doubts how overwhelmed with emotions Fly100% was in that moment of success by reaching something he never did before. It captures the moment when he conquered the highest point of the mountain after climbing there for years, and is finally able to close his eyes, breathing in the clean air of victory and noticing a dream came true ­ a dream that is captured in one photoshoot and let¹s the players he overcame, which are standing next to him, look so small.

Fly100% played like he never did before and took down the biggest stars in this tournament - this photo can ensure that he¹ll be never forgotten for this and show the world how much concentrated passion, excitement and beauty comes along with eSports and gaming. It is in your hands to put it in a frame Academy.

Thank you."

Frank 'Mirhi' Fields - Nominated for Scene Journalist 2009

"I am very thankful to be nominated for Scene Journalist for the second consecutive year.

I feel a certain pride being the only one to be nominated from this category from this side of the Atlantic, but I feel I am especially deserving.

I have always been told by my peers and my editors that almost every single article I have written has been of quality to get nominated for the award and that my work should be recognized, but beyond that, the work I had to put in to keep up with the scene was quite frankly outrageous.

I remember in January for PGL and WC3L finals writing Day 1 and Tournament reviews at 6 AM local time after having stayed up all night watching the matches and then writing an article just so that it would be out in time for Europeans to read it in the afternoon and beat the other gaming sites with similar reviews. I had to do this for every Chinese event that I covered, and although it was fun, it was extremely tiring - all that, and I never received a salary from myMYM.

My goal was to bring my writing style and professionalism to E-Sports to hopefully improve the community, and I think I succeeded in doing that. From everything from interviews, meta-game articles, match coverage, and event previews, I put all my energy and ability into and I think helped not only myMYM but the scene in general.

My happiest achievement however, was that I was able to help connect the American scene to the International scene through my coverage; something I am proud of.

Thank you for your consideration."

readmore.de - Nominated for Best eSports Coverage 2009

Statement by Jan-Hendrik 'cYph' Heuschkel, Editor in Chief of readmore.de
"Readmore.de is really proud of being nominated for the eSports award in every single year since the inception of this award. As the core of the German eSports community, readmore.de has attracted a huge domestic following, but also gained international recognition through easy-to-use features and a passion for delivering up-to-the-minute news. Thousands of gamers from all over Europe and even Asia and America visit readmore.de in spite of the natural language barrier for a quick overview over upcoming matches and recent player moves on a daily basis and add that extra motivation for us to strive for further content excellence.

Of course, there are many areas in which we are trying to improve on a daily basis. For one thing, eSports is a fast-paced environment and the sheer amount of events and announcements happening every day poses a huge challenge for our staff deciding what to present to our readers or not. This process can never be perfect, but will we continue trying. On the other hand, readmore.de is not only news: Our vibrant community is a vital part of the whole website and we are proud of being host to so many eSports enthusiasts. We are always trying to strengthen our relationship with our readers to improve their user experience, no matter if it's on the forums, the groups or in the comments. Last but not least we are looking at a careful optimization of our website to get our content to presented even better.

Even though we are once again glad to be nominated, we can't help but add our take on future editions of the eSports award. As of this year, the event's hosts have announced to let the Academy decide who will win the award for Best Coverage which is a step forward from our point of view, given that a popular vote on the internet might lead to abuse or errors. We would also like to encourage Turtle Entertainment to strive for as much transparency as possible and to explain each decision to the public in the best possible way. This award derives a good portion of its value from broad recognition and we believe that a maximum of transparency ensures that. We also believe that in a perfect world such an award would be hosted by an independent organization, created by all parties involved in eSports. Unfortunately, this is obviously not possible as of yet so we would like to thank Turtle Entertainment for stepping up a filling the gap. May the best team / player / journalist / website / photo win."

Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund - Nominated for eSports Player of the Year and Best Counter-Strike Player

"Three major titles this year with my new team,
Kicked from SK once, still following my dream

Been working hard since CS came out,
This is what it’s all about, no doubt,

To capture the trophy in front of my fellow nominees,
Stand on the gamescom stage if the jury agrees,

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not cocky,
80 hours gaming a week, the road has been rocky.

Okay, I know I’m not a writer and you have a tough decision to fight,
But I hope these lines of poetry might give the award to me: Get_RiGhT."

Manuel 'Grubby' Schenkhuizen - Nominated for Best Warcraft 3 Player

"My achievements from August 2008 to August 2009:

3rd place WEM
1st place WCG
1st place IEM Seoul
2nd place IEM Cheng Du
2nd place Blizzard Season 7 Europe Regionals
1st place GOMtv Invitational
1st place e-Stars, King of the Game

Greetings everyone, please allow me to share with you, my last year’s events.

I believe one of the hardest aspects of being a successful eSports athlete is consistency. “It’s harder to stay at the top, than to reach it.” A statement which is backed up by countless testimonies of people who have been at the top, and realise that you can’t get lazy for even a moment.

In my 6th year of progaming (2008-2009), I’ve won the WCG for the 2nd time, this time in Cologne. This was at a point when many people believed I might not have “it” in me anymore. My battle in cologne was against my opponents of course, but also against the pressure of being a top accomplished player and against the expectations that I would not be able to do it a second time.

Some people thought my WCG victory in 2008 might have been a fluke, a lucky run. It’s hard to call it lucky when you have to fight your way through players such as Infi, ToD, HoT and Moon. I did not meet a single Undead or Orc player in the play-offs. Infi was a top favourite, I came back from 0-1’s against ToD and Moon, and HoT had just defeated LucifroN in the previous round, proving his shape.

To prove that WCG was not a fluke, a week later I won the Intel Extreme Masters tournament in Seoul, Korea. The other 3 players were Lyn, Sky and Moon. It was a double elimination tournament, but I didn’t lose any BO3’s.

The conditions in January’s Chengdu triple events were not the best, but I still finished at 2nd place in the Intel Extreme Masters tournament there.

After somewhat of a calm period tournament-wise, I finished 2nd at Blizzard Season 7 Europe Regionals, and consequently won the GOMtv Invitational, dropping only 3 maps and 0 BO3’s in the whole tournament. I played some of the best players of each race to achieve victory.

In between these LAN’s, together with team Netherlands, I made it to the finals of ENC for the first time in ENC history, squeezing past previous winner Sweden, as well as the Russian nation.

A first place at e-Stars Seoul, King of the Game cup has been my latest achievement. On paper it looks like a consistency, but I know how much hard work I put in for each and everyone of these achievements, and how much I continue to strive for more accomplishments.

Thank you for reading and considering my statement.
Best regards, EG.Grubby"