Former Cloud9 member LemonNation has tested positive for COVID-19
Former Cloud9 support and current manager of Team Radiance Daerek “LemonNation” Hart has announced he has tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this Thursday.
The 30-year-old League of Legends veteran made a Twitter post on Thursday, unveiling he has tested positive for coronavirus, by adding a picture of his results, jokingly stating he is now a "corona boy". Although not highly deadly amongst younger population, COVID-19 has proven to be no joking matter, as it not only spreads extremely quickly, having infected over 1 million people worldwide and caused over 53,000 deaths, most of which came in Italy, where there are to date over 14,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19-related deaths.
Not only has COVID-19 taken lives of thousands of people, the illness has also severely hindered the economy and all the esports industry, which saw numerous big-name events cancelled, moved to an online format or indefinitely postponed. What's more, there are more and more esports athletes who have announced they have been infected by the potentially deadly disease, and LemonNation is unfortunately just another name on the long list.
LemonNation has begun his League of Legends career in April 2012 with Orbit Gaming, which acquired a North American stack of players, who previously played under the name HOODSTOMPGRAVESGG, named after their ADC Devon "Hoodstomp" Mark, who was known for playing Graves (while Graves was still an ADC champion). At Orbit Gaming, LemonNation played alongside Hai "Hai" Du Lam and Jason "WildTurtle" Tran, both of whom rose to become one of the most prominent names in the scene. Hai, while retired from the competitive scene, rose to prominence by helping Cloud9 win two NA LCS splits and went to World Championship three times. WildTurtle, on the other side is the main ADC for FlyQuest and is currently competing in the 2020 LCS Spring Split playoffs.
LemonNation remained with Orbit Gaming up to November 2012, when the team disbanded and saw its core move to Quantic Gaming, which was later in April 2013 acquired by Cloud9. LemonNation played for Cloud9 from 2013 up to October 2015. During his stay at C9, he played alongside some well-known names such as An "BalIs" Van Le,Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi and William "Meteos" Hartman. In October, LemonNation announced retirement and was promoted to a coaching position. His stint as a head coach, however, was short-lived, as LemonNation found himself moved to substitute role in April 2016.
In January 2017, LemonNation returned to the Rift as support for FlyQuest and later in December 2017 moved to OpTic Gaming, where he made his last appearance on an LCS roster. After finishing ninth in the regular season, LemonNation got replaced by Terry “Big” Chuong and left the team in March 2019. Later, he got appointed as a manager of Radiance, an amateur North American LoL team, where he remains to date.
Besides his announcement that he was infected by COVID-19, LemonNation has yet to give any update, besides stating that he is feeling fine now, however, had minor cold-like symptoms previously and was feeling a bit lethargic.
