Indoor Rowing takes main stage at the Olympic Esports Week Forum

Lausanne, Singapore – 22 June 2023

Earlier today at the Swissotel Stamford Ballroom in Singapore, Filip Ljubicic as World Rowing’s Chair of the Indoor Rowing Commission together with leading industry experts such as David Neichel (SVP Public & International Affairs for ESL FACEIT Group) and Peter Li (Head of Gaming Partnerships for PICO) took the main stage at IOC’s Olympic Esports Week Forum in the South-East Asian metropole to discuss on relevant topics of the virtual and gaming sports ecosystem.

The session which was opened by Singapore’s Minister of State for the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth and Ministry of Trade and Industry, Alvin Tan delivering a very well received opening speech and by Alibaba Group’s President of Corporate Development, Chris Tung addressing a keynote for the Technology and Development section, saw the high-profile panel focusing on the “Gamification of Sports: The next level competition”.

A key take-away from the session was the common opinion that today more than ever, sport sees itself at the start of a revolution. Participants and audience show a constantly and exponentially increasing appetite for new forms of gamification of sports and sportification of games, while technology is more and more equipped to create and deliver respective unique experiences. In this context it is expected that the near future will see publishers working with continued acceleration on the integration of sports into games and of games into sport. The panel agreed that the use of artificial intelligence will become one of the key vehicles of the transformation and that it will affect all levels of sport, from grassroots training to high performance competition – both real and virtual.

Taking a particular eye on the transformation of sports, the panel emphasized on the aspect that simply “copy pasting” traditional sport competition formats into the new digital environments will most likely not provide the necessary and desired solutions, and that more sophisticated approaches will be key for future success.

Says Filip Ljubicic: “We see the start of an exciting dawn for sports. The revolution ahead of us comes with significant challenges but will also offer extraordinary opportunities. The transformation will allow for advanced audience engagement and new forms of broadcast production. It will make our sport even more accessible and allow for even more diversity. We clearly see Singapore and the first ever Olympic Esports Week as a most promising kick-off for the future of Rowing.”

About:

The Olympic Esports Week 2023 is a four-day festival showcasing the best of virtual sports. The inaugural event, created by the IOC in partnership with the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, Sport Singapore and the Singapore National Olympic Committee (SNOC) will take place at Singapore’s Suntec Conference and Exhibition Centre from the 22nd to the 25th of June.

The Olympic Esports Week 2023 will showcase the best of virtual sports across exhibiting the latest innovations, panel discussions, education sessions and show matches. A highlight of the Olympic Esports Week 2023 will be the first live, in-person finals of the Olympic Esports Series 2023.

Rowing participates as an exhibition sport in the free-to-play zone in collaboration with EXR and Rowcave.