Sri Lanka Esports hoisted the national flag at yet another International Esports event
earlier last month, the IESF Esports World Championship 2021. Organized 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 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.
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 their 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 & 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.
