'Bharat in Paris': Celebrating India's Olympic Movement and adoption of Esports

New Delhi, July 14 (IANS) All roads on Sunday converged at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium to witness the first major convening of traditional sports and Esports ahead of the Paris Olympics that is scheduled to be held from July 26 to August 11.

The maiden inaugural run, titled 'Bharat in Paris' is a celebration of India’s Olympic movement and a prelude to the inclusion of Esports in Olympics.

The 'Bharat In Paris' event marks the recognition of Esports amongst traditional sports. Inspired by the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to position India as a global sports power with aspirations of hosting the Olympics in the near future.

The run aims to integrate traditional sports with the fast growing Indian Esports segment, which even the Government of India, by the Prime Minister himself, has acknowledged recently.

The Bharat in Paris Inaugural Run was flagged off Chief Guest Giriraj Singh, Minister of Textiles in the presence of Guest of Honour Manoj Tiwari, Member of Parliament.

In his address Giriraj Singh said, "First of all, I recognise the efforts of Abhishek Issar and Ishan Verma for organising this event. Today India has made big strides in Olympics. India has achieved so much in the global sporting arena, which is unimaginable. India is winning medals in every sports making the country proud”

He further stated, "the growing opportunity of digital India offers great possibilities in leveraging new Olympic medal sports such as ESports. This is a great occasion for India to establish its presence in the ESports industry and win medals along with traditional sports."

Manoj Tiwari said, "Today's 7-km run is good wishes going to the athletes going to Paris for the Olympics. It is our wish to the Indian contingent to double the medals tally. It is good to see the progress and fillip given to ESports along with traditional sports. The recognition of ESports in Olympics is a big step which will motivate enthusiasts and propel them to do better".

UNIV Sportatech, a pioneer in the Esports policy adoption, with a vision to cultivate robust Esports ecosystem by advising the State Governments, is also hosting esports tournaments across multiple regions of the country, with the aim to create an enabling policy-led environment to empower the Government and have a trickle down effect for grassroots development of the sector.

The ‘Bharat In Paris’ event also includes an esports tournament, along with the run, where all winners are being attributed a cumulative prizepool of INR 2,64,000 (INR 1,50,000 for the podium finishers from the run and INR 1,14,000 for esports winners). The event is a representation of Indian citizens getting to participate in the Olympic sports (run, BGMI, Chess, FIFA) and show their skills.

While there are three age-categories for the runners on the race day, the Esports tournament had three titles (BGMI - BattleGrounds Mobile India, E-Chess and EA Sports FC24) over the last 10 days culminating in Sunday's grand celebrations. The 10-day esports tournament witnessed participation from 1500 applicants from all corners of the country. The winners have been flown in specially from Patna and Mumbai, while there are others from Kolkata and Delhi as well.

The winners were felicitated by India’s iconic ESports athletes - Tanmay “Scout” Singh, Ammar “Destro” Khan and Lokmanyu Chaturvedi at a special Meet & Greet Session giving an opportunity for ESports aspirants to take their autographs, take pictures with them, and hear from them their inspiring journey in the world of gaming/ESports.

Speaking about the initiative, Abhishek Issar, Founder, UNIV Sportatech, said, "The ‘Bharat In Paris’ Olympic awareness run is a celebration of Bharat’s rising force as part of the Olympic movement. Akin to the International Olympic movement of creating the Esports Olympics, today we are proud to have played our part in creating an inclusive approach having to accord winners of the run and esports at the same event.

"We are proud to be taking esports ground up having to have advised the central Government for recognising esports as a sport and now empowering the state governments, like the Bihar Government, to create state esports policies. Given India’s fantastic digital infrastructure, and the central Government’s positive outlook, Esports may well be Bharat’s moment to take a podium finish at the Olympics.”

Ishan Verma, Founder, UNIV Sportatech, added, “Bharat in Paris', an Olympic awareness run also aims to draw attention towards inclusion of esports at the Olympics. India's esports market is growing rapidly, expected to reach USD 919 million by 2032. Interestingly, India currently holds a very small player pool, and recognising this anomaly UNIV Sportatech is committed towards building talent identification and incubation programs to support emerging talent nationwide. The Bharat In Paris Esports event is one small step in that direction. We hope a consistent build up of this approach will soon position India as a global esports leader and inspire future esports athletes."