China’s five-member team won the Asian Games' first Esports gold medal on Tuesday - an event closely watched by Olympic officials. The hosts defeated Malaysia in "Arena of Valor". The win comes as Esports is pushing for its inclusion in the Olympic Games, five years after it came to Jakarta Asian Games as a demonstration sport. A total of 476 athletes from 30 different countries are competing for gold medals in seven different titles this year.
The Esports event is being held in Hangzhou Esports Centre from September 24 to October 2, with India participating in four of the seven total titles: DOTA 2, EA Sports FC Online, League of Legends, and Street Fighter V: Champion Edition. India fielded a 15-member squad.
The country’s DOTA 2 team led by Darshan Bata (A35), and comprising Krish Gupta (Krish-), Abhishek Yadav (Abhi-), Ketan Goyal (Evil-Ash), and Shubham Goli (Madness) has been drawn in Group A alongside Kyrgyzstan and Philippines. Both of their group matchups are scheduled to take place in the Best-of-One (BO1) single round-robin format on September 29.
The group winner will take on Nepal in the elimination stages on September 30. All matches in the elimination stage were contested in the head-to-head, BO3 single elimination format. There will be 14 notable DOTA 2 teams participating in the title.
League of Legends (LoL), a popular multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game, was one of the seven Esports medal events at the Asian Games 2023. League of Legends is a 5v5 multiplayer online battle arena game (MOBA) where two teams of five players each battle it out on a quadrangular map. The main objective of the game is to destroy the opponent team’s main structure, also called the Nexus, located at the other end of the battlefield. Whichever team destroys the opposition’s Nexus first wins. A total of 15 League of Legends teams, including the Indian team, competed at the 19th Asian Games.
The Indian League of Legends team enjoyed an unbeaten run at the seeding event for South Asian countries in Macau and started its campaign in the quarter-finals. Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and hosts China are the other seeded teams in the competition and started from the final eight. The other 11 teams were divided into four groups.
The Indian team consisted of Akshaj Shenoy aka Kai (captain), Aditya Selvaraj aka Krow, Aakash Shandilya aka Infi, Mihir Ranjan aka Lotus, Sanindhya Malik aka Deadcorp, Samarth Trivedi aka CrankO . India lost to Vietnam in QF and bowed out of the competition.
Street Fighter V: Champion Edition is a 1v1 fighting game where players choose a unique character with special moves and abilities. Players can select any character they like out of the 40 available lasts around one to two minutes. All ties in the Street Fighter V event at the Asian Games 2023 were played in a best-of-three matches format. The Street Fighter V: Champion Edition title will witness a total of 35 notable athletes from 22 countries battling it out for a historic medal. All matches will be conducted in the best-of-three (BO3) format and the loser bracket final and grand final will be played in a best-of-seven (BO7) format.
Dota 2 is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game that is played between two teams of five players each. Charanjot Singh and Karman Singh Tikka were eliminated from the EA Sports FC Online Asian Games 2023 event. Charanjot Singh showed hope in the Losers Bracket but was eliminated by Liu Jiacheng of China.