New Delhi, April 26 (Agency) Esports Federation of India (ESFI) on Tuesday announced a strong 18-member Indian contingent for the upcoming 2022 Asian Games where Esports will be making a debut as a medal sport. Following eight days of high-voltage competition and nail-biting action at the ESFI’s National Esports Championship 2022 (NESC’22), the winners have been selected to represent the country at the prestigious continental tournament, scheduled in Hangzhou, China from September 10-25.
The NESC’22 saw more than 200 esports athletes from across the country battling it out virtually in the five popular Esports titles — DOTA2, Hearthstone, FIFA22, Street Fighter V and League of Legends. The runners-up of single player titles — FIFA22, Street Fighter V and Hearthstone — will also be part of the Indian contingent. On the final day of the championships, Team Whoops emerged champions in DOTA2 and made the cut into the Indian contingent for the Asiad. A team, comprising veteran athletes like Moin Ejaz (captain), Krish, Abhishek, Ketan, Darshan and Shubham, notched up a comprehensive 3-0 win against Team Avengers in the best-of-five final.
The national champions and the runners-up, who will be part of the Indian contingent at the Asian Games 2022, are: FIFA22 – Charanjot Singh and Karman Singh Tikka Street Fighter V – Mayank Prajapati and Ayan Biswas Hearthstone – Shikhar Choudhary and Karthik Varma League of Legends – Team Temple of kings (captain Akshaj Shenoy, Samarth Arvind Trivedi, Mihir Ranjan, Aditya Selvaraj, Aakash Shandilya and Sanindhya Malik) DOTA 2 – Team Whoops (captain Moin Ejaz, Krish, Abhishek, Ketan, Darshan and Shubham) The Indian contingent will now participate in the AESF’s Road to Asian Games-Regional Qualifiers (June-July, 2022), which will be conducted to decide seeding for the main event in China.