Sri Lanka’s largest university-level sporting event, Gamer.LK’s Inter-University Esports Championship powered by SLT-MOBITEL concluded on a successful note recently with SLIIT emerging as the overall Champions.
Providing participants a chance to represent their companies in Esports, the seventh edition of the Championship saw over 1,200 students from 60+ universities taking part in the month-long online tournament. Participants competed across 16 popular game titles aiming to secure virtual medals similar to the Olympic medal system.
SLIIT emerged victorious with the most gold medals securing 4 gold and 2 silver medals. NSBM was placed second with 3 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze medals while ESOFT bagged third with 2 gold and 1 silver medal.
In addition, University of Moratuwa, ANC Education, UCL, ACBT, Prima Baking School, University of Jaffna and University of Kelaniya picked up gold medals in the tournament.
“I am ecstatic and proud of SLIIT for being crowned champions in this year’s Gamer.LK’s Inter-University Esports Championship ‘22. The SLIIT team indeed fought hard and played a great game overall. We encourage our students to participate in extracurricular activities in addition to their studies because we believe that this helps them develop into well-rounded members of society and strengthens our position as a premier higher educational institution in Sri Lanka. I’d also like to extend our warm wishes to all of the other teams that competed, as well as those who shared their good wishes and support with our competitors. Congratulating the team on their triumph once more, we would like to reiterate our continued support for our Esports teams in their future endeavours. Further, we would like to express our appreciation to the organisers for hosting this type of competition each year to provide young adults with an opportunity to engage with one another and network outside of the classroom” said Uditha Gamage, the Director Student Services & Outreach of SLIIT.
Esports has seen a massive spike in interest in Sri Lanka over the recent past as traditional sports came to a standstill due to the pandemic and the situation in the country. Recognised in 2019 as the 70th official sport in Sri Lanka by the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Esports continues to grow at a rapid pace and is widely regarded as the country’s ‘fastest-growing sport’.
“Gamer.LK’s Inter-University Esports Championship continues to grow in number of participants, as well as the impact it has on the university sports structure in the country. Esports is increasingly becoming a core sport in the University sports line-up, and the numbers and hype shows it. We are very excited at the possibility that the next Esports athlete to represent Sri Lanka and make our mark in the International stage may evolve from the university level.”, said Raveen Wijayatilake, the Founder of Gamer.LK and CEO of InGame Esports.
The Championship was powered by SLT-MOBITEL, the National ICT Solutions Provider who were also the title partner. SLT-MOBITEL has been at the forefront of empowering digital entertainment and Esports in Sri Lanka with a wide range of products and solution catering to gamers in the country.
“We were pleased to have come forward as title sponsor for this year’s Inter-University Esports Championship organised by Gamer.LK. SLT-MOBITEL celebrates gaming as the next frontier of entertainment and the provision of ultra-fast connectivity and HD streaming enables local cyber athletes to unlock their true potential. We congratulate all the winners of this year’s Championship. We aim to continue our unwavering commitment to empower the gaming community, to ensure quality digital lifestyle services for our customers including for game lovers who are digitally native, have a high degree of savviness technologically, and require the best connectivity, which we provide through our network. Also, from 1st of January 2023 onwards, all Fibre users will be able to enjoy super-fast high speed internet connectivity since SLT-MOBITEL is increasing its bandwidth to 200Mbps download speed and 100Mbps upload speed,” stated Prabhath Dahanayake, Group Chief Marketing Officer of SLT.
ViewSonic Gaming was the Official Gaming Monitor of this year’s Championship. ViewSonic, a world-renowned brand with a stellar reputation in the consumer, business and professional monitor markets has introduced its gaming product line; ViewSonic Gaming to Sri Lanka catering to both casual gamers and hardcore Esports athletes alike.
The Championship is set to return for its eighth edition in 2023.
