Sri Lankan Esports takes on the world at IESF Esports World Championship ’21

Sri Lanka Esports hoisted the National Flag at yet another international esports event earlier last month, the IESF Esports World Championship 2021. Organised by the International Esports Federation (IESF), this year’s championship hosted at Eilat, Israel was the 13th instalment since its inception in 2009. 

The grand finals of the championship also held significance as one of the first non-virtual Esports events since the pandemic and brought together finalists from 85 nations to a physical competition.

The IESF Esports World Championship is the Esports parallel to the Olympics, wherein each nation brings forward their finest athletes to compete across multiple game titles. This year, the championship had four official titles: DOTA 2, Counter Strike Global Offensive, Tekken 7 and eFootball 2021, with Audition being held as a promotional title. This year the Championship also had a prize pool of $ 50,000.

Safwan ‘CB’ Mansoor playing Audition and Mohammed Shihab Mohammed Rizan playing eFootball 2022 made it through to the physical Grand Finals in Israel. 

Mohammed Shihab Mohammed Rizan is one of the nation’s finest eFootball players. He represented Sri Lanka at the Asian Games 2018 Regional Qualifiers for Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) as part of the team of National Esports Athletes by Sri Lanka Esports. He has continued his journey as an athlete, gaining experience with each encounter he faces. He was Sri Lanka’s flag bearer at the opening ceremony of this year’s World Championship. At the grand finals, Shihab went head to head against Nigeria, Georgia, Mongolia, and Mexico in eFootball 2021 and despite a valiant effort was unable to acquire a placement.  

Safwan ‘CB’ Mansoor is a prolific Esports athlete within Sri Lanka and spearheads one of the nation’s leading Esports clans - Phoenix Gaming. Despite his focus on racing and football games, Safwan proved his more recent foray into Audition more than successful at the IESF World Championship 2021. After a series of intense matches against Thailand, Brazil, Peru and Korea in the grand finals, Safwan successfully clinched fourth place for Sri Lanka by beating Esports juggernauts South Korea.

Sri Lanka Esports is backed by the strength and commitment of its main sponsor Dialog and geared with Asus Republic of Gamers as the Official Gaming Laptop partner alongside Gamer.LK as the strategic partner. 

As one of Sri Lanka’s largest telecom service providers, Dialog is known for its home broadband and wide range of data plans, which connects gamers all around the country. Dialog also has a gaming subsidiary called Dialog Gaming, which hosts gaming and Esports competitions. Recently, Dialog Gaming in collaboration with local developers launched MegaPlay, an all-in-one e-gaming mobile app, featuring a gamut of hyper-casual games, to the delight of gamers island-wide.

ASUS Republic of Gamers, with their lineup of high end gaming laptops, which include the Zephyrus, Zephyrus Duo, Strix Scar and ROG Flow series, offers gamers a  complete line of innovative products known for performance and quality, such as their; laptops, desktops, motherboards, graphics cards, monitors, audio equipment, routers and peripherals. ROG also participates in and sponsors major local and international gaming events.

Along with the support of these partnerships, each tournament brings the athletes a wealth of experience laying the foundation for our nation to make waves in the global stage of Esports in the near future.