Kurihara, 11, One Win From Youngest Asian Games Medal

Yuki Kurihara is 11 years old, still at primary school, and one win away from a record that has stood since 2018. The Japanese esports player topped Group A in Puyo Puyo Champions at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Sept. 24, winning all four of his matches, and goes into the medal round on Saturday, Sept. 26. Any podium finish makes him the youngest medallist in the history of the Games.

His group stage was not close. Kurihara beat every opponent he faced, including a 3-0 sweep of Hong Kong's Yu Wing Lim, who is 28, Gulf News reported. BBC Sport, covering his opening day, wrote that he was beating players almost three times his age.

The mark he is chasing belongs to Indonesia's Bunga Nyimas Cinta, who won bronze in women's street skateboarding at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta aged 12, as Asia Times reported at the time. Kurihara turned professional in April, two months before his 11th birthday. A medal of any colour on Saturday would therefore pull the record down a full year of age, and move it from skateboarding to a puzzle game.

Puyo Puyo Champions is a Japanese title in which players clear the screen of coloured blobs by lining them up and popping them; the long cascades are called dairensa. It is on the esports programme at Aichi Sky Expo, the exhibition centre near Chubu Centrair airport where the organising committee has also placed breaking, BMX freestyle, fencing and skateboarding. Esports sessions run there from Sept. 23 to Oct. 2, with the wider Games spread across Nagoya and Aichi until Oct. 4.

Kurihara was already a record-holder before he sat down at a console in Aichi. He earned his place in the Japan squad at 10, making him the youngest athlete his country has ever sent to an Asian Games, and in February he beat an adult professional to win Sega's Puyo Puyo Grand Prix Final.

His routine is ordinary in almost every respect but one: he says he eats eel before competitions. Away from the tournament hall he goes to cram school, plays football and watches YouTube, with his gaming time strictly limited, according to Gulf News. \"The best feeling in the world is winning,\" he told the Japan Times in remarks carried by BBC Sport. \"When I lose, I cry and try not to think about it too much. When the play doesn't go well it's not fun, so I want to quit. But I always come back. I hope to win a gold medal for Japan.\"

What remains unknown is the bracket. The organising committee's venue schedule lists two esports sessions on Saturday, starting at 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. local time, but it does not publish Kurihara's opponents in advance. Until those matches are played, the record still belongs to a 12-year-old skateboarder.