There’s Now A 92-Year-Old Esports Champion

Earlier this year, we reported on the Care Esports Association in Japan’s attempt at bringing Esports to the older generation.

It runs semi-regular Tekken tournaments for care home residents aged between 60 and 90 to help keep their minds healthy. This year’s summer tournament was won by Yoshie Murabe, who mained Kuma, and last month, the association hosted its winter tournament, which broke all records (via Game Spark Japan).

A 92-Year-Old Just Won A Tekken 8 Tournament

Much like the previous tournament, the 12th Care Esports Cup was treated with much grandeur. It featured a full three-hour livestream, two professional Esports casters, and an eight-competitor bracket, and it broke all kinds of previous records.

The tournament included a 95-year-old competitor, Reiko Yokota, who played Jin and was won by 92-year-old Hisako Sakai, making her, by our accounts, the oldest Esports champion in world history.

Sakai won her first-round matchup against Yokota, using Claudio Serafino, and progressed all the way to the final, beating Sadayuki Kato in the semi-finals and Goro Sugiyama in the final.

Her technique left a lot to be desired, with the pensioner rarely looking at the screen, just the buttons she was mashing on her controller, but a win is a win, and Sakai was crowned champion of the 12th Care Esports Cup. There was clear determination in the competitor’s face, and she entered such a fugue state that she had to be stopped after earning the KO on multiple occasions, as she didn’t realize the matches had finished.

While Sakai’s win likely won’t earn her plaudits, and she’s unlikely to take the crown from the officially recognized oldest Esports champion, Abbe Borg, who, at 78, was part of the team that won the DreamHack CS:GO seniors tournament in 2019, it’s a clear showing of the power of video games.