Faker targets second Asian Games gold with Korea esports team

The Korean national team for the esports category in the upcoming Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games held a kickoff ceremony Tuesday and shared their ambitions.

After debuting 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, set to kick off Sept. 19 in Japan this year.

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 esports Association said.

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

"Since the 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 football video game, among others.

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. Korea is eyeing a total of five gold, two silver and two bronze medals at this year's Asian Games.

Yonhap