Esports' long awaited date with Olympics is here
Adoption as an Olympic sport is considered the crown jewel of every emerging sport and esports is no different.
After a long push and pull it appears that there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel in 2023.
This is after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that they shall hold an inaugural Esports Olympic week in Singapore this year from June 22-25 in what they termed as “a major step in supporting the development of virtual sports within the Olympic movement and engaging further with competitive gamers.”
The event is expected to be a trial of what esports at the Olympic games would look like if it were to be adopted.
It shall be the first in person live finals of an esports competition to be staged by the IOC.
This shall be building on the Olympic virtual series that was held back in 2021 attracting over 250 000 participants from across 100 countries.
That series was exclusively virtual and included simulation sports games like motorsport, baseball, cycling, rowing and sailing.
IOC’s journey with esports has been long, dating back to July 2018 when the IOC formed the Esports and Gaming Liaison Group chaired by David Lapppartient to explore the potential inclusion of esports at the Olympic Games as a resolution of the inaugural esports forum held at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The group presented a report to the 9th Olympic summit in 2019 and the summit’s declaration stated that the IOC had adopted a two-speed approach in regards to esports; to encourage international federations to consider how to govern virtual forms of their sports in collaboration with publishers of the games and that for other electronic games, the focus should be on the gamers, promoting their participation in sports, rather than purely focusing on the games.
Going by the official statement on the esports Olympic week, only simulation sports games will be included which shows that the IOC has not changed its views on first person shooting games (FPS) or multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games which they say do not align to the Olympic values, rules and regulations.
Anyway, the trial of the first in-person live Olympic esports competition is a huge shot in the arm for the esports movement and it looks like this shall be the last hurdle to jump before the finish line of adopting esports as an olympic sport is crossed.
At last, 2023 is the year that esports' long awaited date with the Olympics has come. BY DAILY NATION
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