The World Games Athlete of the Year 2023
It’s that time of year again – when you can support your favourite athletes or The World Games sports by voting in The World Games Athlete of the Year poll. Starting in 6 days’ time, you can cast your votes every day right through to the end of January. Yearly, more than 500,000 votes are cast in the race for the title!
You can vote every day from 10th January!
The names of the candidates for the 2023 Athlete of the Year were published today on The World Games website, and voting begins at 12.00 GMT on Wednesday 10th January. The candidates have been nominated by their international federations: some of them are well-known stars with many medals, whilst others are clearly on their way to being the big stars of the future. What is common to all the candidates is that they have enjoyed outstanding success in top-level competition in 2023.
From Monday 22nd January at 12.00 GMT, only the 10 highest-ranked candidates at that time will continue in the race, and these candidates will then re-start with 0 votes. Voting ends at 12.00 GMT on Wednesday 31st January.
You can cast your votes once every 24 hours. Each time you vote, you choose two candidates; two votes go to your first-choice candidate and 1 vote goes to a second-choice candidate. A vote given to one candidate only will not be registered. You can of course change your choice from day to day – but most voters prioritise their favourite by making that candidate their first choice every day.
Support your favourite – spread the word
And you can do so much more than just vote – you can spread the word through social media. Many sports are harnessing their fans to make the most of the voting opportunities – you too can share your enthusiasm and support your candidate and your sport by helping to spread the word.
Keep in touch with the race
As the race progresses, the number of votes cast for each candidate will be shown in the Athlete of the Year section on the website www.theworldgames.org. So as the cut-off date of 22nd January approaches, you can see how your chosen candidates are doing, and help to rally yet more support for your favourite.
The winner receives a trophy and a valuable prize and a lot of good publicity – and to make sure that everything is fair, the International World Games Association will scrutinize the voting process closely and deal with any anomalies that appear. All voters shall act in accordance with fair play in sport!
AotY 2023: the tenth race
This is the tenth year of voting for The World Games Athlete of the Year. Previous winners are:
2013: Marcel Hassemeier (GER), Life Saving
2014: Adam Ondra (CZE), Sport Climbing
2015: Mwai Kumwenda (MAW), Netball
2016: Sofia Olofsson (SWE), Muaythai
2017: Reza Alipourzenashandifar (IRI), Sport Climbing
2018: Marina Chernova & Georgii Pataraia (RUS), Gymnastics
2019: Rani Rampal (IND), Hockey
2022: PR Sreesjeh (IND), Hockey
2023: Valeria Cardenas (COL), Flying Disc, and Flying Disc Team GER took the team award
2020 TWG Greatest Athlete of All Time:
Nicole David (MAS), Squash
The World Games is a multi-sport event staged every four years by the International World Games Association, organised with the support of the International Olympic Committee. The World Games 2022 was held in Birmingham, Alabama, USA, 7-17 July 2022. 3,600 athletes from 34 sports and 100 countries took part in the Games. The 12th edition of The World Games will be held in Chengdu, CHN, 7-17 August 2025.
