Some testing, more education for gamers at Olympic Esports week

SINGAPORE – Hot on the heels of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) announcing that e-sports might ultimately come under its code, some elite gamers will get a taste of what that might mean at

Olympic Esports Week as the event started on Thursday.

Wada told Reuters in May that the Global Esports Federation (GEF) had made an approach about putting together an education programme, a potential first step towards embracing the global anti-doping code.

The anti-doping element of this week’s inaugural Olympic event in Singapore will focus mainly on education, although some events, such as cycling game Zwift, are run by the international federations and therefore already subject to doping rules.

“I think from an Olympic movement perspective, the fairness of the competition has always been very important, and doping a key topic,” Vincent Pereira, the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) head of virtual sport, told Reuters.

“The international federations are responsible to do doping regulations aligned with their own regulations... alongside that as it’s a new competition space here in gaming, our will is also to provide some education sessions.”

Pereira added that the feedback he had received from players so far was that they were “super happy” to be involved in the doping education sessions.

“I believe it is necessary because just like any other sports in the Olympics, e-sports are legit sports,” said Singaporean Siti Zhywee Ramle,

who will compete in a dancing game.

“Just Dance for example, it’s physically demanding so we want to make sure that all the players are clean.”

While all the games at this week’s Olympic event are based on sports and several involve exercise, that is not the case for much of the world of e-sports.

Gaming is a billion-dollar industry and e-sports tournaments offer hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money, so some players use performance-enhancing substances, such as stimulants, to stay alert during long hours at the keyboard.

The IOC recognised e-sports as a “sports activity” in 2017 and it will be a medal event at a major multi-sports Games for the first time at the Asian Games in Hangzhou from Sept 23 to Oct 8.

To get into the Olympics proper, however, the GEF would have to be signatories to the Wada code and have a drug-testing regime in place.

“This is the first step on how the Olympic movement can help e-sports to develop, and take some good direction on these topics that are here to preserve the health of the players and the fairness of the competition,” Pereira said.

“They’re also sharing a lot of similar values, and the Olympic values, like friendship, respect and excellence are all part of both worlds. In e-sports we can see the same synergies, values, and this is what we want to see during this Olympic Esports Week.” REUTERS