Jaime "Craime" Bustos has become the youngest player ever to win an Esports World Cup championship. The Chilean took the Street Fighter 6 title at EWC 2026 in Paris at 15 years, two months and 25 days old.
The run
The bracket he came through is the part that makes this more than a record. In the quarterfinals he beat MenaRD, the EVO 2026 winner, 5-3. In the semifinals he eliminated Eisuke "Yamaguchi" Yamaguchi, the EVO Japan 2026 winner. Then in the grand final he beat Japan's Hibiki 5-2.
Read that again as a sequence: the reigning EVO champion, then the reigning EVO Japan champion, then the grand final. There is no soft path in that list. Beating one of those players is a career result for most competitors. Beating both back to back and then closing out a final is the kind of run people will still be referencing in five years.
Hibiki's own route deserves a mention, because he arrived through the Last Chance Qualifier. That was a 269-competitor field from which only five players advanced to the main event. Reaching a grand final from there is remarkable in its own right, and it made for a final between two players who both had to earn every round.
What he won
250,000 dollars, qualification for Capcom Cup 13, and 1,000 Club Championship points for Team Falcons. The Capcom Cup slot may matter more than the money in the long run, since it puts him in the game's most prestigious end-of-season event before he turns 16.
For Falcons the timing was significant. It was the organisation's first tournament victory of EWC 2026, and it came at a point when the two-time defending club champions needed a result. Those 1,000 points moved them to the top of the Club Championship standings, which our standings explainer covers in full.
Why a 15-year-old winning is not a surprise in fighting games
Fighting games have always been friendlier to very young players than most esports. There is no team to build around you, no coach filtering your decisions, and no roster politics. You either read your opponent and execute or you do not, and both of those are things a teenager can be world-class at. What is genuinely rare is doing it against a bracket this stacked, in front of an arena crowd, in a first-to-five format where a single misread run can end you.
The other factor is that Street Fighter 6 has a deep and very active competitive scene, so nobody arrives at this level unnoticed. Craime was not an unknown who got hot for a weekend, he was a player good enough to be in the conversation who then converted on the biggest stage available. The official write-up is on the Esports World Cup site.
What comes next
Capcom Cup 13, and the rest of a career that now starts from a title rather than working toward one. The immediate question is whether he can hold form, because winning once at 15 and staying at the top for a decade are different achievements. On the evidence of this bracket, betting against him would be a strange position to take.
For the rest of the competition, our EWC 2026 guide has the calendar, and our EVO 2026 recap covers the fighting-game season that led into this.
FAQ
Who is the youngest Esports World Cup champion?
Jaime "Craime" Bustos of Chile, who won Street Fighter 6 at EWC 2026 aged 15 years, two months and 25 days, competing for Team Falcons.
Who did Craime beat on the way to the title?
He beat EVO 2026 winner MenaRD 5-3 in the quarterfinals, eliminated EVO Japan 2026 winner Eisuke Yamaguchi in the semifinals, then beat Japan's Hibiki 5-2 in the grand final.
What did Craime win?
250,000 dollars, qualification for Capcom Cup 13, and 1,000 Club Championship points for Team Falcons, which moved the organisation to the top of the club standings.
How did Hibiki reach the grand final?
Through the Last Chance Qualifier, a 269-competitor field from which only five players advanced to the main event, which makes his run to the final notable in its own right.