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The Electronic Sporting League will be making changes to its policies and rules in response to claims made by a competitor that he competed in an esports tournament under the influence of drugs.

Last week, professional gamer Kory Friesen admitted that he competed in an esports tournament while on Adderall, an amphetamine that improves cognition and reaction time. The frank and casual statement rippled through the competitive gaming world, putting focus on the problem of doping in the field.


WIRED.co.uk reached out to the Electronic Sporting League, the organising body of the ESL One Katowice tournament where Friesen says he played on Adderall. We were curious as to the esports body's reactions to the player's comments, and how they were responding. "The integrity of our sport is and always will be our biggest concern," says Anna Rozwandowicz, head of communications at ESL. "When we first saw [Friesen's comments], we focused immediately on kickstarting a policy-making process and adjusting the rules. We have worked on changes in our rules, reached out to authorities for support, and will be ready to announce our next steps in a couple of days. When that comes out, you can treat that as our full statement on the issue."

As far as any punishment being imposed on Friesen, the matter is trickier. "Our rules forbid participating in the tournament while on drugs [but] we don't have a list of repercussions that we can match to every incident in a straightforward manner," says Rozwandowicz.

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While ESL once disqualified a player for turning up drunk, Rozwandowicz adds that "there has never been a case of us finding out a player took drugs -- any kind of drugs -- during our events, and as such we never had to punish anyone for it." "Contrary to what [Friesen] says in his interview, taking performance enhancing drugs isn't 'how you win' those tournaments, and it's counter-productive in the long run. Like in any sport, you win by practicing and working hard."

In Friesen's specific case, things get slightly muddier given his current standing versus when he claims to have taken Adderall. "There are a couple of things we need to make sure we're not forgetting about," says Rozwandowicz. "First of all, Friesen is an ex-Cloud9 player. He is not on the team anymore, nor is he involved with them in any other way, and he has been <a>let go of</a><a> due to his and team's poor performance."</a>

In short, there are grounds to suspect Friesen may have been trolling as much as owning up to drug use, perhaps looking to cause trouble for his former team whether he was being honest about Adderall use or not. "We have no way of knowing whether he is telling the truth, or just being upset about being removed from the team and trying to annoy them," Rozwandowicz continues. "We've had cases of players admitting to cheating, but then denying everything once they found out they can get disqualified and banned for it. Upon investigating, it became clear that the games were played according to the requirements and were protected by anti-cheat software, so no cheating was possible." "Secondly, we only have his word for it. We can't punish him and/or the team in any way if we don't have any proof. The ESL One Katowice event was four months ago, so we can't perform any tests to determine whether they were or were not using Adderall. If I walk into a police station claiming I killed someone; sure, I would get arrested, but not convicted without proof and a trial in court."


The ESL relies on the owners, managers, and coaches of competing teams to "help them understand the consequences of taking drugs", but also manage the pressure of playing in front of crowds of tens of thousands, with potentially millions of dollars in prize money. "For what it's worth, most esports players are young and it can be overwhelming," Rozwandowicz adds. "There are team houses who employ psychologists and mental coaches that have regular sessions with the players and help with balancing all elements of their lives."

If nothing else, the incident has accelerated ESL's plans for its new policies and guidelines. "With the new general policy and specific updates to our tournament rules, we are hoping to have a waterproof strategy for identifying PEDs, testing for their presence and punishing players who were caught using any of the forbidden substances."

As for doping as a wider problem, Rozwandowicz believes that looking to traditional sports and how they have dealt with drug use can serve as a viable guide as esports evolves. "For the past couple of years, we've been driving home the point that esports is a sport. The issue isn't new and goes much deeper than most people can imagine," she says. "While it is and will remain about protecting the integrity of our sport, things like that have to be done right. So there needs to be a policy, a process, a governing body, an appeal system and what not -- just like in any other sport. We're taking the steps to level with traditional sports, and it's going to take a while before any esports organisation will administer regular drugs tests. We hope to speed this process up by proactively seeking advice from authorities and starting small. Full blown drug tests at esports events are far away, but that doesn't mean we can't and shouldn't try to tackle the issue."