Olympics unlikely to be bridge too far for eSports if the money is right

The richest sportsman on the planet isn’t Floyd Mayweather, LeBron James, Lionel Messi or Roger Federer, but Michael Bambang Hartono, a 78-year-old from the small town of Kudus, in Central Java, Indonesia. His jab’s weak, he surely can’t dunk, and his backhand likely sucks, but he’s a crack lobbyist and he plays a mean hand of bridge. These two talents go together. In 2016, after years of effort, Hartono persuaded the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) to include bridge as a competitive event at the 2018 Asian Games. Last month, he took part in the contest himself, as a member of Indonesia’s supermixed team, and won a bronze medal.