eSports Icon ‘Uzi’ to Retire Due to Professional Gaming Related Health Problems
The League of Legends world championship final took place in November in Paris
A top eSports player with a vast following in his native China announced his retirement on Wednesday with a litany of health problems related to professional gaming.
The premature end to the career of Jian Zihao, better known by his gaming name “Uzi”, shines a harsh spotlight on the lifestyles and training of eSports players.
Uzi is a star League of Legends player for the Chinese team Royal Never Give Up (RNG) and his decision to quit was a top trending topic on China’s Twitter-like Weibo.
Chinese media said that he was born in 1997 and experts called him one of the best players in the history of League of Legends, a popular multi-player battle game.
“I regret to tell everyone that I am retiring,” Uzi wrote to his nearly five million followers on Weibo.
“Because of chronic stress, obesity, irregular diet, staying up late and other reasons, I was found to have Type-2 diabetes during a physical examination last year.”
Uzi also said that he was suffering a hand injury, a common complaint in eSports.
eSports competitors undergo long hours of intense training
RNG said that Uzi, who made his debut in professional eSports in 2012, suffered “injuries accumulated over eight years of high-intensity training”.
They described him as “not only the heart and soul of RNG, but also an icon in the eSports world as a whole”.