SINGAPORE: While the inaugural Asian Youth Games is still in progress, the World Cyber Games (WCG) 2009 Asian Championships drew to a close at Suntec Singapore on Sunday evening.

Singapore finished a tied-third with Malaysia as both garnered a silver and a bronze in the three-day competition that saw national champions from 14 countries across Asia battle it out. Vietnam returned home as the WCG 2009 Asian champion with two golds out of three.

Vietnam's first gold came at the FIFA Soccer 2009 (PC) game, when To Trung Hieu took on South Korea's Lee Won Kuk with an aggregate score of 10-4.

"It was a relaxing victory as the stronger opponents like India and Malaysia were already out," To said through an interpreter.

A Vietnamese five-man DOTA All-stars (PC) team then took centre stage with Malaysia to contest in the real-time strategy game. It was soon evident that the aggressive offensive play of the Vietnamese was too much for the Malaysians to handle.

It was a different case for Singapore's Eternity.XTC as it had to battle hard for the bronze medal against the South Koreans in DOTA All-stars.

While the Singapore gamers were down on the Hero kill ratio in the initial stage, they decided to buy time and conserve their Heroes before staging a comeback to destroy the South Koreans' buildings and winning the game. "We didn't give up and fought on," Eternity.XTC team captain Don Soh said.

Singapore's only gold medal hope Joel Teo fought all the way to the final with last year's champion, New Zealand's Mason Maddox, for the last gold of the championship.

Despite winning the first round, the Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) student lost the next two rounds to the experienced Maddox, preventing a Southeast Asian clean sweep. "He (Maddox) is just a better player," Teo conceded.

With the competition finally over, Teo can look forward to a well-deserved break. "I am probably going for dinner with friends and family as they expect something from my prize money after these few days of support," he said, referring to the S$600 he pocketed for finishing second.

"After that, I will go home, crash and catch up on my homework tomorrow!"

The WCG 2009 Grand Finals will be held in Chengdu, China, in November.


- TODAY/so