Whenever we Talk about sports and sportspersons, we have a conventional outlook of them being sturdy and strong with muscles in their legs and a heavily padded upper body. But What if we change this delusion and conventional idea of a sportsperson and think of a teenager with coloured hair, sporting dreadlocks with a lean body.
I know we’re playing on the traditional and stereotypical thought process but here’s the deal. For long long years, the gaming and breakdancing segment has fought to attain its position in the field of sports. The Concept of esports is not easily digested by the people even today, leaving it way behind in the struggle or race to be considered as a full-fledged competitive sport. The same goes with break dancing as well. Both Of these activities have a well developed and skilled competition and require a high degree of skill to be practised. But even after all this, they were not labelled as “fringe sports” for long. Activities such as skateboarding surfing and climbing fall under this category of fringe sports as all of them set to make their Olympic bow in Tokyo.
Gamers and break dancers might not be as tall as swimmers for as strong as wrestlers but they have a unique and special set of skills. And they are expected to stand out when they take the Asiad stage next year.
Gaming and breakdancing have for long been conceived as an activity for the lazy and angsty. But now as the times are changing both of them are seen a huge massive momentum which is expected to be continued in 2021 as well. Both of these activities are now giving rebellious ages to traditional multisport events and are poised to stay in the same momentum before debut at the Hangzhou Asian games next year.
A lot of gamers have already received public attention and attraction as esports came into the Limelight with everybody locked down in their houses.
A 30-year-old gamer, Ankur Diwakar, represented India at the 2018 Asian games in the field of esports. The esport then was a demonstration event. Arun Diwakar says that whenever he goes out people hurdle around him praising his skills while others ask ok if he is a TikToker, social media influencer or an Instagrammer. He also claims that at the Asian games was treated as not all these but an athlete.
Assimilate kind of experience is shared by Tirth Mehta, the bronze medalist in the hearthstone competition. He belongs to Gujarat.
both of them were made to stay in athlete’s village along with thousands of the world’s greatest athletes.
Which time and increasing popularity, esports slowly and gradually establishing its own status and position in the field of sports. IOC’s first marketing and broadcast rights director, Michael Payne, says ” you go to formula one and the drivers are even officially training on Esports, making use of the virtual tracks for their training mechanism.”
We have also seen major global personalities changing their stance and viewpoints in regards to the gaming sector. One such example is that of Jack ma, co-founder of Alibaba. In 2008 he famously proclaimed that he would not invest even a single penny in the gaming sector and would rather starve to death than live on games. Interestingly, the events took a turn and in 2018 Alisports, the sports arm of Alibaba, sponsored esports as an exhibition event at Jakarta Asian games. In fact, at the closing ceremony, Jack ma was made responsible of the Asiad flag to bring to Hangzhou which is the place where the games would be hosted in 2022 and his and Alibaba’s hometown. The sudden turn of Alibaba’s viewpoint on video games comes after the company step into the medium in the year 2014. Currently, it is pursuing all that’s possible to compete with its Arch rival Tencent to capture the southeast Asia esports market.
During Jakarta Asian games six games were featured out of which three were owned by Tencent and two made by America’s Activision blizzard, which is a company in which Tencent has heavily invested. The only game which cannot be rooted to Tencent was Japanese giants Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer. The games enjoyed immense popularity due to their appearance in Asian games which led to a bump in their sales.
However, taking this popularity to the Olympics stage is still a long challenge.
