Meng Yang, a 21-year-old from the southwestern province of Sichuan who is known online as RocketBoy, won second place in the Doom 3 competition at Quakecon 2005 on August 14 in Texas in the US.

The first Chinese to earn a singles title in a world-class computer game tournament in 2004, many see Meng as an overnight millionaire or computer game prodigy, but as far as he is concerned he is an eSports athlete.

ESports players include amateurs and professionals who organize themselves in clans to compete in gaming tournaments and leagues. Some of the most popular games are currently Counter-Strike, Warcraft, StarCraft, FIFA 2005 and Need for Speed.

According to the All-China Sports Federation, in contrast to other forms of computer gaming, eSports focus on athletes playing at competitions.

Meng first displayed his talent by becoming runner-up in a local Quake match in March 2000. But like the majority of China's gamers, Meng didn't know it could be a profession until Computer Business Information, an IT weekly, published a story about a sponsored StarCraft match between two groups of game gurus.

The next year, a Chinese amateur pair defeated Italian professionals in the StarCraft finals at the first World Cyber Games (WCG) in South Korea. Meng made the last 16 in the WCG Quake III competition.

Many gaming teams have been set up throughout China, including Passionate Future of Wuhan, Goldtel of Chengdu, Abit-Strike of Shanghai and New4 from Xi'an.

The Ministry of Information Industry launched China Internet Gaming (CIG) in April 2002, but despite the survival of teams like 8DA and AG, more spontaneously established clans disbanded due to unsteady performances and lack of sponsors. The closure of more than 3,300 internet cafes throughout China July to December of that year after a fatal fire in Beijing also had a negative effect.

In February 2003, Meng won a star player selection campaign by Intel and sina.com.cn, and that November He Huixian, vice president of the Chinese Olympic Committee, announced that eSports were to be listed as the 99th official sport by the State General Administration of Sports (SGAS).

That year, China hosted legs of three world-class eSports tournaments, WCG, Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) and Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC), and the SGCS decided to inaugurate China ESport Games (CEG) the next year.

The first eSports national team was founded in June 13, 2004 and that year over 200 matches were held nationwide with more than 1,000 enterprises engaging in the sector. The first CEG championship attracted 2 million participants and the 4th WCG tournament China leg had tens of thousands of applicants.

On October 15, 2004 Meng defeated Doom 3 world champion Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel in an exciting fight to the finish for the US$125,000 ACON Fatal1ty Great Wall Shootout.

On winning the richest prize in gaming history, Meng said, "To compete with the best gamer in the world in China for a prize of 1,000,000 yuan is something unbelievable."

One month later Meng signed on to the ABIT Gamers, fulfilling his dream of being a professional player. He will be their lead gamer at all gaming events in China and involved in the development and testing of all ABIT gaming products including motherboards, VGA cards and other gaming gear.

In 2005, Meng traveled throughout China, promoting professional gaming and the AG8 motherboard named after RocketBoy across the country.

In April, Meng returned to his hometown, becoming a student of the newly established Chengdu Game College. "Frankly speaking, the quality of us players is rather poor as few of us have a college education." He said his dream was now engaging in gaming development and design work after graduation and having a game of his own in the future.

After winning second place at the Quakecon 2005 Doom 3 competition, Meng is practicing 5 hours a day to prepare for the 2005 CPL China leg in October.

(China.org.cn by Li Xiao August 30, 2005)