In recent news, a professional StarCraft player from Korea, was denied access to enter the United States, before returning to the same airport with an athlete’s visa. The visa granted him permission to enter the country and compete in his tournament, all under the title of “athlete”. Although this was unanimously accepted by the gaming community, to me it raised the question; should a gamer be considered an athlete?
While I stand in a neutral position between sporting athletes and professional gamers, appreciating both respectively, I couldn’t help but get an odd feeling when a gamer was branded as an athlete. By definition – google definition that is – an athlete is a person who is proficient in sports and other forms of physical exercise, using this definition we would then consider gaming to be a sport. Surely this must come as a slap in the face to competitive athletes who put their mind, body and soul into their field, with some – mma fighters for example – risking their body each and every time they compete. This would cause many athletes to pose the argument; if becoming an athlete was so simple, they would have spent their years training, behind a computer playing games, an extreme and somewhat ignorant example to make, but with some truth nonetheless.
Able to see both sides of the spectrum, an appealing case can be made for the side of gamers. It is hard to question the undeniable amount of skill and talent that is needed to become an elite gamer in any game, some would argue even more so than in regular sports. The reason for this is; anyone can be a gamer. It’s easy for the average joe to pick up a game and attempt playing it, obviously some will be better than others, but the sheer amount of players causes fierce competition, more fierce than what can be seen in regular sports. Admittedly there is more difficult to break into the upper echelon of sporting athletes, but this cannot take away from the hours of training and preparation that is also required to break into the upper echelon of the gaming community.
As the world evolves, the world of sporting follows, what are considered sports now would have been a ridiculous notion fifty years ago, that is the beauty of it. With all the new revelations in sports, it gives everyone a chance to find their place, be it football or gaming, everyone has a competitive fire under them and deserves a chance to show it. While the world of gaming is still a few years from being considered a sport, its time will come. Let’s give the nerdy kid a chance to wear a gold medal!
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