Sibol’s 'Taon ng Tagumpay' ends with humbling Asian Games stint

MANILA, Philippines — The country's national esports team, Sibol, saw a humbling end to their 2023 campaign as they bowed out early in the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.

Out of the six esports events the Philippines competed in, Sibol representatives were mostly eliminated in the group stages, only reaching the playoffs in the Dream Three Kingdom event, where they eventually placed fifth overall.

Dubbed as “Taon Ng Tagumpay”, Sibol's 2023 campaign saw multiple championships, winning six (two golds, one silver and three bronze) medals in the 32nd Southeast Asian Games held in Cambodia last May, notably finishing in the podium in all events participated in.

In the World Esports Championships (WEC) organized by the International Esports Federation (IESF) in Iasi last month, Sibol won two medals, a silver in Tekken 7 and a gold for Mobile Legends Bang Bang. The two podium finishes propelled Sibol as the overall champions of the tournament.

Their last outing for 2023 though would be the hardest of them all for the team as they faced the giants of the esports industry in the Asian Games.

"We felt like this is a new level for us. We [were] already successful with our past campaigns and like all new levels we knew that this is going to be very challenging," Sibol general manager Leo “Jab” Escutin told Philstar.com.

Sibol participated in six events during the Asian Games: EA FIFA Online, Arena of Valor, Street Fighter V, PUBG Mobile, Dream Three Kingdoms and Dota2 but was eliminated in the early rounds.

Though the team missed out on a podium finish, Escutin sees their Asian Games run as a huge learning experience for the team.

"We are here to learn, we wanted to maximize all the opportunities for our local Esports Athletes to be exposed to the Asian Games. We wanted to go there and compete and learn everything we can, not only through the games but also the backend processes that we needed to understand because the Asian Games is vastly different from our previous competitions like the SEA Games and IESF World Championship due to the prestigious nature," shared Escutin.

With the conclusion of the Asian Games and the reschedule of the Asian Indoor Games, Sibol’s Taon ng Tagumpay campaign comes to an end. But even with the numerous medals and championships, Sibol is not done showing the world what Filipino esports athletes can do.

"We're currently preparing for 2024. We're hoping to be able to provide more opportunities to develop the grassroots so that we can continually support our homegrown talent pool. We want to get the interest of publishers to invest in the esports ecosystem here in the Philippines so that we can help our talented community improve their skills with their games. We're very excited for the future and how we can continue to showcase our homegrown esports athletes to the world," said Escutin.