Olympic Esports Series Begins - Qualifiers ongoing

First announced last year, the Olympic Esports series is now ongoing, with the qualifiers just recently starting.

Your e-time has come! 🎮

The Olympic Esports Series is coming and this is your chance to participate! Are you up for the challenge?#OlympicsEsports #OlympicEsportsSeries pic.twitter.com/Igc0mMATyi

— The Olympic Games (@Olympics) March 1, 2023

The Olympic Esports Series (OES) has officially started, introducing video games to the well-known sports event. The “global virtual and simulated sports competition” was first announced last year, although not many details were released. Thankfully, we received more information on the event, so let's dive straight into it.

For starters, let's talk about the qualifiers. As with most sporting events, the OES will have qualifiers to decide who gets to compete. The qualifier period starts on March 1, 2023, and ends on May 15, 2023. Players can sign up and participate in the following Esports:

• Archery
  • Via Tic Tac Bow
• Baseball
  • Via WBSC eBASEBALL: POWER PROS
• Chess
  • Via Chess.com
• Dance
  • Via Just Dance
• Motor Sport
  • Via Gran Turismo 7
• Sailing
  • Via Virtual Regatta
• Tennis
  • Via Tennis Clash

While anyone can sign up for the qualifiers above, the ones below are by invitation only:

• Cycling
  • Via Zwift

• Taekwondo
  • Via Virtual Taekwondo

Qualifier dates differ from sport to sport, so interested players must head over to the respective sites to check when the qualifier dates are.

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After the qualifier period ends, the OES will hold the live, in-person finals during the first-ever Olympic Esports Week (OEW). The OEW starts on June 22, 2023, and ends on June 25, 2023. This will happen in Singapore. The four-day festival will also have panel discussions, forums, and exhibition matches alongside the finals for each sport.

Understandably, some people are not big fans of the list of games in the OES. After all, when players think Esports, games like Valorant, CSGO, League of Legends, or DOTA 2 pop up. While the disappointment is understandable, this was completely expected. After all, the original announcement put a focus on “virtual and simulated sports”. From the beginning, it was already somewhat hinted that the games appearing in the OES are actual sports games. Whether this will change or not in the future, we won't really know. We will just have to wait and see.

That's all the information we have about the Olympic Esports Series and its ongoing qualifiers. For more gaming news from us, you can also check out our gaming news articles.