THE BEIJING Olympics may be over, but qualification for their gaming equivalent begins in earnest early next month.
About 100 of Ireland's best computer game players will take part in the Irish finals of the World Cyber Games, considered the Olympics for computer gamers, on the weekend after next.
Pre-qualification tournaments have already taken place in Dublin, Cork and Limerick.
Competitors will take part in four separate computer games: Halo, FIFA 08, World of Warcrafton PC and Project Gotham Racing 4.
The Irish finals take place at the Digital Hub in Dublin on September 6th and 7th and are sponsored by Eircom.
Seven people will be chosen to represent Ireland at the games, which which take place in Cologne in November.
Gaming is a multibillion dollar, global industry and some of the best players in the world can look forward to pursuing it as a professional career through sponsorship if they win at the world finals.
The most famous gamer in the world, Johnathan Wendel, has secured multimillion dollar contracts to develop a range of accessories for computer games.
Mark Kenny (25), who was Ireland's first professional gamer until earlier this year, will be participating in the Irish finals in Project Gotham Racing 4and says that he hopes to qualify for the world finals.
"It is really tough after that. No Irish competitor has got into the knockout stages yet at the world finals, but we have high hopes in a couple of games this year.
"We have more experience and more competitions so people can develop their skills," he said.
