South Korean esports team sets sights on gold at Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games

By Kang Jae-eun

SEOUL, Aug. 25 (Yonhap) -- The South Korean national team for the esports category in the upcoming Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games held a kick-off ceremony Tuesday and shared their ambitions.

Since being featured as a demonstration sport at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, esports will be held as an official medal sport for the second time at the quadrennial event scheduled to kick off Sept. 19 in Japan this year.

South Korea will send a team of 44 people, including 36 athletes, to compete in nine of 11 esports genres. The number of athletes and competing events has more than doubled from the 2022 Asian Games held in Hangzhou, China, the Korea e-Sports Association said.

The esports star Lee Sang-hyeok, best known as Faker, will be vying for a second gold medal in the League of Legends (LoL) genre as part of the national team this year.

"Since the South Korean people have high hopes for the esports category, I want to fulfill that hope ... and give them back pride and honor," Faker said at a press conference in Seoul, adding that he feels more excited than stressed ahead of the competition.

"I will do my very best, in my role, to ensure that our team wins the championship and brings back the gold medal," he said.

The esports category has been expanded in this years' Asian Games with an array of new game genres, including Puyo Puyo, a famous Japanese tile-matching puzzle game, and eFootball, a Japanese soccer video game, among others.

South Korea's national esports team will also have its first woman athlete this year, Park So-yeon, who will compete in Identity V, a survival horror game.

"Since I am the first (woman athlete), I feel a great responsibility to pave the way for other women athletes who love playing games as much as I do," Park said. "I want to go all out and have no regrets."

Esports competitions will start Sept. 22 and will continue until Oct. 2. South Korea is eyeing a total of five gold, two silver and two bronze medals at this year's Asiad games.