Monks Shot Into Fame After Becoming Champions Of Online Racing Game

Imagine training for months for a competition.

Now, imagine yourself being stomped by some of the fiercest competition you have ever seen: three Thai monks.

Yes, I kid you not, monks. And you thought the kid in the basement loaded up with Mountain Dew was the real competition.

Toppling the Competition

The team from Balee Sathit Suksa, a secondary school for apprentice monks, wowed the crowd when the took first place in the 2019 KKU’s Nong Khai Fair for the mobile racing game Speed Drifter.

Talk about a different kind of underdog story.

The students were introduced to the game during a computer class and began training whenever they had the chance to.

By whenever, I meant in between 20 hours of religious studies AND a regular student curriculum on top of it? Serious dedication right there.

“The novices wanted to try entering the competition, so we gave them that opportunity. However, we didn’t expect them to actually win,” Kokkiad Chaisamchareonlap, the academic coordinator and head monk of the school said.

You’d imagine the face of everyone hanging open when the three monks walked up to claim their prize.

Slight Skeptics

Of course, haters will hate and people will always question somebody.

A translated tweet showed that there were people who were slightly dissatisfied that the winners wore their monk robes to claim their prize.

“Usually I don’t make a big deal out of religious things, but I think this is inappropriate. It’s not illegal nor is it extreme, but I just feel like the monks should not have worn the robes to compete in the tournament.”

However, Kokkiad came to their defence, claiming that, “The novices are just like children, like other people their age that need to grow, develop their skills and explore their interests.”

“We wanted to give the students an opportunity. A lot of them don’t have that coming from poor families or broken homes, The three want to compete, they asked to. So we gave them the opportunity.”

I mean with all the talk of video games causing violence, I think this case itself is a pretty good argument for ‘nope’.

In fact, Balee Sathit Suksa is not the first school to send students for such competitions, but the first to win so far!

Once again, congratulations to the three winners! As an avid gamer myself, slightly (very) jealous and a great inspiration.