Swedish press is all over Jonathan "Jinro" Walsh. They describe him as StarCraft community supporter made superstar. The press outside the eSports bubble find the "homecoming star" story sexy. Of course, we do too.
The Swedish Terran, who was an active contributionist at the forums of TeamLiquid as well as a member of the national team of Sweden back in the day, is a lovable character. His fanbase is so passionate that the greeting meet-up at the Swedish airport Arlanda initiated by Rakaka.se was a success. Fans from all over the nation came to see the players flown in from Korea to enter Swedish ground.
His recent results do no not go hand-in-hand with the all the commotion. It has been a tough month for Jonathan.
He lost to HongUn in the Code S Round of 16, shortly after his success in Round of 32, taking scalps from the two Terrans RainBOw and Polt. In the TeamLiquid Starleague, Jinro was knocked out in the first round by MorroW. And in the GSL World Championship his air time turned short, losing to an on-song JulyZerg in the team match and lost disappointingly to Anypro in the individual event. In a recently team update, the 'Gorilla Terran' says the recent lackluster performance was a combination of lots of things.
- "I was kinda low on motivation about the time I lost GSL March, and even slightly before. Then I got sick for a while." He added, "I've got my motivation back now though."
The once labeled 'Hero of the foreigners' came home to Sweden after 8 months, and his parents were there to welcome him home. To Aftonbladet, they mentioned how great it was to follow their son's success in Korea.
- "This is great. He is following the dream he has had since he was 12 years old," said his mother Katherine Walsh.
Jinro is playing the Protoss virtuoso White-Ra in the first round. Should he advance from there, he will be paired up against HuK, another Protoss, or BoxeR's stand-in SjoW. Terran versus Protoss is statistically his best match-up not counting his matches in Korea. But looking at his performance in Korea only, his record against Protoss is at 6-8 (42.86%) which is his lowest.
The homecoming Swede has in several interviews mentioned his longing for a decent breakfast. "Koreans don't believe in this whole breakfast thing. It's just lunch three times a day," he said on his team website.
The one-day event begins as late as three in the afternoon on Tuesday, but hopefully for Jinro and his zealous fans his breakfast is decent enough to carry him to victory on the home field.
Sources: Aftonbladet.se, TeamLiquid.net, DreamHack.se