Last year she became Overwatch League’s first female player.
Kim “Geguri” Se-yeon, an Overwatch League pro, has been named a Time’s 2019 Next Generation Leader.
Announced by Time, the 19-year-old South Korean professional eSports player is part of the Shanghai Dragons in the Blizzard-produced Overwatch League. She started her career as a Zarya main and largely plays as a tank.
In 2016, Geguri was accused of using automatic aiming software to cheat, but was cleared of the accusation following an official investigation by Blizzard. Of the incident, Geguri said “The one thing I learned after the hacking incident is that you should never accuse somebody without proper proof. I was able to get through this whole fiasco with the help and support of my teammates at the time.”
The Shanghai Dragons suffered a 42-game losing streak including loses from last season and from OWL’s inaugural pre-season. This season, however, they are pushing forward with a 6-6 record.
Of her role as a prominent female eSports player, Geguri said “Since I am the only female player in the whole league, I think there are a lot of people who look up to me and see me as a role model. Knowing this, I’m trying a lot harder to inspire others to get to where I am today.”
We reported in February 2018 that Geguri was set to be Overwatch League’s first female player, and she previously played for ROX Orcas. Last year, Geguri was one of the Overwatch League players that was involved in talks with an Olympic committee to discuss future Olympic eSports opportunities.
Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].
Colin Stevens is a news writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.
