Tshwarelo Tshwane gets national colours for gaming

Tshwarelo Tshwane is a 13-year-old from Montanus Primary School, South Hills that has recently earned his national colours in Esports and will compete in the North-West University (NWU) Esports tournament.

The Southern Courier recently caught up with Tshwarelo to find out about his raise as one of the up-and-coming stars of the sport.

“I started playing with Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA) last month and was able to compete in the annual SA National Online School Championships in June 2022. I often play games when I go visit my friends. There isn’t a specific game we play we like to play all the games,” said Tswarelo.

His mother Roselyn Tshwane started playing board games with MSSA and won the board game world championship held in East London in 2007 while she was still a student at the University of Johannesburg.

“After university and winning the world championship I lost contact with MSSA and recently after scrolling through LinkedIn I saw a post of them and contacted them again,” said Roselyn.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, lots of people and children specifically were forced to stay at home with none of them being able to do anything. Many started doing Esports as a way of coping with the stress of the pandemic and also as a healthy release of stress.

With Esports being played around the world this gave Tshwarelo a chance to play against opponents from across the world meaning he will learn about different cultures.

Tshwarelo’s first competition that he took part in was in June and he ended first in the primary school section for the Clash Royale esports title and earn himself National Primary School Colours.

But the championship had many factors that worked against the gamers as load-shedding was a constant factor that gamers had to deal with.

The weeks before the competition with the help of his mother and Colin Webster (the president of MSSA) Tswarelo was put on a strict training schedule and it paid off as he won eight of the 12 games that he played during the competition.

“I felt relieved that I managed to get it done after playing Clash Royale for a short period,” said Tswarelo.

Tswarelo is a prefect at school and hopes that his achievement inspires all his friends to do the same.

Colin said, “It is impossible to separate the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and Esports. The growth of Esports at school level is an important factor in promoting 4IR and capacitating learners for the modern economy. Esports too enlarges the ‘sports pie’ to bring in more athletes and administrators across age and gender boundaries to enable more people than ever before to achieve their full potential.”