Der Spiegel [in German], supported by Sky News [in English], report:
[translation mine]Ever since young people started earning money playing computer games, a discussion has arisen within Gamer circles: is E-sport, professional computer game playing, really sport? Is mouse-clicking and button pressing at high tempo easier, more challenging, or just as sophisticated as kicking a ball or swimming faster than others?
To put it plainly, whoever games professionally needs exactly as much training, passion, and talent as professionals in classical sports. And that good gamers compete in front of tens of thousands of spectators makes the world hardly better or worse than a football/soccer world championship or the Tour de France.
In any event Gamers may have to think about the issue more than they'd like. The E-Sports League (ESL), in which players of games like "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive," "Fifa," and "League of Legends" compete, has announced that they will be cooperating with the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA). It is supposed to not only prevent doping, but institute concrete testing. ESL has announced that the Counter-Strike competition on August 22-23 in Cologne's Lanxess Arena that skin tests will be conducted.
Additional reporting here and here.
(Score: 1) by jmoschner on Saturday July 25 2015, @04:38PM
I'm of the opinion that so long as whatever they are doing is legal, athletes (of legal age) should be allowed to pump whatever they want into their bodies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:13PM
There's no law against injecting yourself with liquid oxygen... here try this, kid...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @06:42PM
Inject yourself with whatever you want. If you inject yourself with something that will likely kill you, you're just an idiot. Good riddance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2015, @08:04PM
- "Hey kid... if you want to live your dream, you should try some of this liquid oxygen... Just inject it directly into your vains"
- "Who do you think brought you here to play ball? I did... And I'm telling you that you will inject this intravenously whether you do it yourself or I have Big Jones here do it."