Gaming champs head for Taipei

Johannesburg, 01 Dec 2006

The Advanced Special Forces (ASF) clan has emerged victorious from the local leg of the Electronic Arts Battlefield (BF) 2142 online PC gaming tournament. The competition was administered by the Amateur Gaming Association of SA (Agasa).

The team has won a trip to Taipei, sponsored by Electronic Arts, to compete in the international BF 2142 competition.

Johann von Backstr"om, Agasa founder, says as the winners of the competition, the members of the ASF clan become the first PC gamers anywhere in the world to be awarded their national colours by their country.

The clan was presented colours at an awards ceremony in Johannesburg on Wednesday morning.

"The team is the first PC team to be officially recognised by the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee. We hope this team will be the first of many. In 2007 we hope to have things in place [allowing] PC gamers to be awarded their Protea colours and be recognised alongside other sports like rugby, cricket and tennis," said Colin Webster, Mind Sports SA president.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, Brett Hamilton, MD of Electronic Arts SA, said it was encouraging to see how far gaming had come in SA. "The level of gaming produced by ASF was world-class and we are expecting big things from them at the tournament in Taipei," Hamilton said.

International bBattlefield

The international competition takes place on Saturday, and will see the SA team going head-to-head with clans from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and India.

Rizaan Lakay, ASF team leader, is from Cape Town. Lakay put the team together and led them through the tournament to clinch victory in the finals. As team leader, he is responsible for strategy in the game and Lakay's leadership will be key if the South African team is to do well, Von Backstr"om says.

"The team is comprised of members from Johannesburg, Cape Town and Pretoria. We all used to play Battlefield 2 in separate clans and when we heard BF 2142 was coming out and Agasa was running a league, I decided to contact the guys and put a team together. We were fortunate to have many of the best Battlefield players join our clan and we're going to Taipei hoping to do well," Lakay says.