Olympic Esports Series 2023: Nigel Tan wins Virtual Taekwondo event

Singaporean taekwondo player Nigel Tan has won the inaugural Virtual Taekwondo event at the finals of the Olympic Esports Series 2023 on home soil after triumphing in an all-Singapore final against Natalie Tor.

The game, a virtual-reality rendering of taekwondo, saw players wearing headsets as well as motion-tracking nodes in their hands and on their shins.

In-game, the aim was to land kicks to drain the opponent's health bar, with the ability to stun the opponent and stop them moving for four seconds. The game provided a level playing field disregarding sex, age, ability and physical differences.

The event featured 16 competitors – eight Olympic taekwondo legends and eight local youth athletes – competing against each other, and Tan and Tor each eliminated legends, Türkiye's Nur Tatar and People's Republic of China's Wu Jingyu respectively, to reach the final.

Tan and Tor split the first two games of the best-of-three final, and in the deciding game, Tor appeared to take the lead on the health bars. But Tan kept his cool to land a chain of kicks and clinch the win 2–1.

"She was super fast in the first round, but I think she got tired in the second and third and managed to get my distance to land my kicks," Tan said of his rival.

The third-place match therefore saw two Olympic legends, the two-time champion Wu and two-time medallist Tatar, duke it out for the bronze trophy.

Wu, the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympic champion, landed quick head kicks to drain Tatar's health bar and stun her opponent in the opening game. The Chinese then chained multiple kicks together to stun Tatar again and close out the third-place match 2–0.