SINGAPORE – In the world of virtual taekwondo, Olympic and world championship titles do not count.

Singapore taekwondo exponents Nigel Tan and Natalie Tor, both 14, proved that at the Olympic Esports Week on Sunday when they beat more illustrious opponents en route to the grand final.

In the semi-finals at the Suntec Singapore Convention and Exhibition Centre, Natalie first beat China’s Wu Jingyu – the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympic champion and twice world champion – before Nigel triumphed over Turkey’s world champion Nur Tatar to set up an all-Singaporean final.

One of the 10 virtual sports contested at the inaugural Olympic Esports Week, which started on Thursday and ended on Sunday, the virtual-reality rendering of taekwondo had players wearing headsets and motion-tracking nodes in their hands and on their shins.

Instead of physical combat, non-contact sparring had an exponent’s kicks mirrored by virtual avatars. The competition was mixed gender and there were no weight classes, unlike the physical version.

The battle of the Singaporean teenagers saw both exponents taking a game each in the best-of-three final, with Natalie taking the lead on the health bars.

But a chain of kicks in the decider gave Nigel the 2-1 victory and the winner’s trophy.

Nigel, a Secondary 3 student at Temasek Secondary School, said: “I definitely thought about it (beating the Olympic legends) in my hotel room. I was thinking about it and hoping it could come true…

“It was definitely unexpected. I thought a lot of the legends would be getting into the finals and I expected an all-legends final.”

Natalie said: “Although I lost, it’s okay because he was very good. I will learn from this fight and maybe next time try again. Everyone is super awesome and they trained together with us.”

In virtual taekwondo, the aim is to land kicks to drain the opponent’s health bar, and exponents are able to stun their opponents and stop them from moving for four seconds.

It took a while for Nigel and Natalie to get used to the system. Nigel felt nauseous initially, while Natalie said the perception of distance was also not the same virtually as compared to in real life.

Nigel said: “The headset definitely adds some weight so you’re not used to it at first.

“So when you use all these spin kicks, you have to account for that and take extra care for certain movements.”

But their experience playing games such as Call of Duty gave them a leg up.

Natalie said: “The distance when I do the kicks is so different so I lose a bit of balance because I’m not used to it.

“But it does help (that I play games) because when I play my games I can kind of gauge the distance.”

While the duo made history by becoming the first Singapore athletes to finish on the podium at the Olympic Esports Week, Natalie is hoping to remain under the radar when the school term resumes on Monday.

The Unity Secondary School student said: “I hope no one recognises me; I’m a bit shy but it’s been a really cool opportunity and an interesting experience.”

Unlike his teammate, Nigel, who once quit the sport as a child because he hated it, plans to enjoy his time in the limelight.

He added: “A lot of my friends say e-sports Olympics isn’t actually the Olympics, but I’m super proud.

“So if some of them know me from winning, then I’d be quite happy.”