The Olympics will officially launch its first eSports Series this year. This means that e-sports have grown big enough to become an official Olympic sport. It is eye-catching that Korea's national sport, taekwondo is included in the related sports event. 

On March 1st, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced nine events in the “Olympic eSports Series 2023 (eSports Series).” The eSports Series is an official eSports international competition at the Olympics co-hosted by the IOC, the International Federation of Sports (IFs), and the Games' production company. 

The e-sports series is an extension of the “Olympic Virtual Series (Virtual Series)” held before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The Virtual Series was successful, with a 250,000 applicants and a cumulative audience of 1,200,000 viewers. 

The series will be played in nine events. The IOC has selected dance (Just Dance), motor sport (Gran Turismo), cycle (Zwift), baseball (WBSC eBASEBALL™: POWER PROS), archery (Tic Tac Bow), yacht (Virtual Regatta), chess (Chess.com), taekwondo (Virtual Taekwondo), and tennis (Tennis Clash) as events in its eSports series. 

It is also expected that this competition will be the first step in introducing e-sports as an official Olympic event. Although Thomas Bach (President, IOC) spoke out against eSports' entry into the Olympics in an interview with the Associated Press on September 1st, 2018, the IOC then showed a positive attitude in introducing the e-Sports into Olympics, starting with the 2021 Olympic Virtual Series. On the IOC official website in November last year, he said, “I believe that the e-sports series can create new opportunities for both e-sports players and fans.”

Some say that it is regrettable that the selected events are not the mainstream of e-sports. Seo Young-Ho (School of Mechanical Engineering, 22), a member of the e-sport & game club “Ultimate” of Pusan National University, said, “I feel sad that IOC did not adopt the league of legends, Over-Watch and FIFA, which are the first things that come to mind when people think of e-sports. Starting with this e-sports series, I expect other mainstream e-sports to be adopted.”

The preliminary matches of the e-sports series will take place from March 1st to May 15th. The finals will be held in Singapore and broadcast live from June 22nd to 25th during the first Olympic Week. The preliminary contest is open to anyone who enjoys e-sports except dance, cycling, and taekwondo. More information can be found on the official Olympic website (https://olympics.com/ko/esports/). 

Reporter Im Hyeon-Gyu

Translated by Lim Chae-Kyung