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Ready to click their way to the podium

KUALA LUMPUR: It is a cool sport. You don't have to run, sweat, argue with the referee or worry about suffering broken bones.

And you can make a lot of money too.

With esports contested for the first time in the Hangzhou Asian Games as a medal event, Malaysia's gamers hope to click their way to the podium.

Malaysia's gamers look capable of mounting a strong challenge following some encouraging results in the buildup to the Asiad.

The target set for the esports team is bronze, and team manager Wong Kang Woon is optimistic of achieving it.

He said the team hope to get a medal in Arena of Valor, having won the event in the Road to Asian Games competition in Macau recently.

"The players have undergone intensive training and had a boot camp. They are currently participating in the KAW2 pro league (July 27-Sept 7)."

In June, Malaysia were ranked No. 1 in Southeast Asia after winning a round robin tourament by defeating Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam.

At the Asian Games, they will compete at the newly built Hangzhou Esport Centre at the foot of the Gaoting Mountain.

In the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, esports were introduced as a demonstration sport.

Malaysia will compete in only four of the seven titles at stake. They are Arena of Valor, Dota 2, League of Legends and Street Fighter V. The team won't be involved in PUBG Mobile, Dream Three Kingdoms 2 and Fifa Online 4.

However, Kang Woon said it is not easy for them to gather the national players from their professional teams.

"Team Arena of Valor and Team Dota2 will have a boot camp in Hangzhou before competing in the Asian Games. Most of our athletes are just finishing up their pro-Games qualifiers.

"For Team Dota2, most of the athletes are just finishing up their international qualifiers (Pro League) and will join the boot camp just before the Asian Games while Team League of Legend and Team Street Fighter V are in training.

"As esports will offer medals at the Asian Games for the first time, everyone has a fair chance.

"The main contenders should be from East Asia and Southeast Asia."

The Malaysian gamers are not only rich in talent but in prizes too. Take Yap 'xNova' Jian Wei for example. He is the highest-earning Malaysian player with a whooping US$2,044,085.72 (RM9.5 million) in prize money overall, all of which was won from Dota2 tournaments.

Esports are booming and thus far, 1,542 Malaysian gamers had won a total of US$18,702,202.50 (RM86.9million) across 1,232 tournaments.

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