Passion for baseball on display during the Olympic Esports Series WBSC eBASEBALL™: POWER PROS finals

Northern Virginia native Jacob Park, known as KangGang in WBSC eBASEBALL™: POWER PROS, is the only American finalist in the game at the Olympic Esports Series. The other finalists hail from Chinese Taipei, Japan and Singapore and most importantly have been playing the series for much longer.

"I wasn't confident that I could qualify when the Olympic Esports Series qualifiers for POWER PROS were first announced," Park said. "As time went on and I started getting better at the game I started to build that confidence."

Park first came across the POWER PROS series at a gaming event in 2018. He instantly fell in love with Konami's baseball video game and continued to play the series as new entries were added. Although he's confident in his skills, he knows players from Asia have a much longer history with the game. Another finalist, Hsu Po-Yao from Chinese Taipei, has been playing the Power Pros series for 30 years.

"I played the first POWER PROS at the very beginning," Hsu said of the 1994 entry in the series that launched on the Super Famicom. "It's a very good game [...]. It's my favourite game and the only one that I love."

Japan dominates in POWER PROS

Hsu, who goes by DoubleBass while playing POWER PROS, and fellow finalist Wang Chia-Ming both have long histories of competing in local baseball tournaments as well. They believe their deep knowledge of the sport and love for POWER PROS will help them excel once the first pitch is thrown during the finals at the Olympic Esports Series.

"The charm of esports is that everyone has a chance. It's a big opportunity for everyone onstage," Hsu said. "That's something that I like about esports, but I do hope the champion will be from [Chinese Taipei]."

All three players believe Japan has some of the best POWER PROS players in the world due to the level of competition in that country. Both Park and Po-Yao believe those players are the ones to keep an eye on heading into the finals.

The thought of competing at an Olympic event like the finals at the Olympic Esports Series 2023 had never crossed the mind of all three players. All they've done is follow their passion for the POWER PROS.

Watch Park, Hsu and the other finalists go head to head during the POWER PROS and baseball finals at the Olympic Esports Series from 23–24 June. The semi-finals and final will be streamed globally on Olympics.com and Olympics social channels on 24 June.

The Olympic Esports Series 2023 is a global virtual and simulated sports competition, created by the IOC, and in collaboration with game publishers and International Federations (IFs) such as Konami and the World Baseball Softball Confederation.