Sri Lankan Esports takes on the world at the IESF Esports World Championship 2021

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 was hosted at Eilat, Israel and 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 USD 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. 

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 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.

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.