CYBERSPORT : IT'S VIRTUALLY REALISTIC.Byline: Tom Hoffarth Submitted for your approval: The athlete whose worst injury is carpal tunnel syndrome carpal tunnel syndrome: see repetitive stress injury. carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) Painful condition caused by repetitive stress to the wrist over time. and whose top fear is a power outage Noun 1. power outage - equipment failure resulting when the supply of power fails; "the ice storm caused a power outage" power failure equipment failure, breakdown - a cessation of normal operation; "there was a power breakdown" . He - or she - is the professional cyberathlete. ``The revolutionary concept of combining the technological abilities of computer-game players and the competitiveness of world-class athletes'' is what the Cyberathlete Website strives to represent and promote. In fact, the mission statement by these politically correct politically correct Politically sensitive adjective Referring to language reflecting awareness and sensitivity to another person's physical, mental, cultural, or other disadvantages or deviations from a norm; a person is not mentally retarded, but PC players is spelled out in Star Trek-like language and a must-read before wandering through the site unattended. ``Within this sport lies a virtue of equality not approached by modern sports, and yet, a fierce competition among those who compete,'' it says. ``The winning distinction falls not between those who can, and those who cannot, but between those who will and who will not.'' Got that, Big Brother? The Cyberathlete Professional League The Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) is a professional sports tournament organization specializing in computer and console video games. Headquartered in Dallas, The CPL holds tournaments throughout the U.S. , launched in July 1997, is an attempt to ``stretch one-on-one gaming to its limits.'' They've done well at that. The site ranks current players who compete in the five annual events, like the one March 6 that attracted 2,000 with cash prizes of about $50,000. The Cyberathlete (by the way, that's a registered trademark name of the Cyberathlete Organization) must be at least 16 to compete in the CPL CPL - Combined Programming Language. U Cambridge and U London. A very complex language, syntactically based on ALGOL 60, with a pure functional subset. Provides the ..where.. form of local definitions. Strongly typed but has a "general" type enabling a weak form of polymorphism. , which is something that other sports that breed young championship athletes like tennis or figure skating figure skating Sport in which ice skaters, singly or in pairs, perform various jumps, spins, and footwork. The figure skate blade has a special serrated toe pick, or toe rake, at the front. might want to note. The ``star players'' go by their computer nicknames. Kiljoy, which belongs to Camarillo 21-year-old John Ehde, admits in his on-line bio he learned to be competitive by playing baseball, but then got hooked on video games See video game console. when he'd go with his pals down to the pizza place after games and pump quarters into the machines. It all starts so innocently, doesn't it? So in what ``games'' do these athletes compete? Madden '98? That's kid stuff. Try things like ``Doom,'' ``Deathmatch'' or ``Wolfenstein 3D Wolfenstein 3D (originally Wolfenstein 3-D, commonly abbreviated to Wolf 3D) is a video game that is generally regarded as having popularized the first person shooter genre on the PC. It was created by id Software and published by Apogee Software. .'' They play best-of-three 20-minute contests (with a five-minute warmup) during tournament action. All this might seem a little too organized, a little too serious. But that's the nature of athletics, we much agree. So why can't a pro organization evolve out of something most everyone else considers a recreation? Or at least something to do after baseball practice? CAPTION(S): Photo PHOTO The Cyberathlete Website: http://www.cyberathlete.com |
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