World Taekwondo Gala Awards Explained

The World Taekwondo Gala Awards are an annual award ceremony hosted by World Taekwondo. The first edition was on 5 December 2014 in Querétaro, Mexico.

Ceremonies

The ceremonies are typically held one day after the annual Grand Prix final and hosted in the same city.

Edition	Date	Venue	Ref
1	5 December 2014	Centro de Congresos Queretaro, Querétaro	^[1]
2	7 December 2015	Mexico National Theater, Mexico City	^[2]
3	11 December 2016	Badamdar Hotel, Baku	^[3] ^[4]
4	4 December 2017	Radisson Blue Hotel, Abidjan	^[5] ^[6]
5	23 November 2018	Fujairah National Theater, Fujairah	^[7]
6	7 December 2019	Lotte Plaza Hotel, Moscow	^[8] ^[9]

Winners

Player of the Year

Year	Winner
	Male	Female
2014	Lee Dae-hoon	Jade Jones
2015	Lee Dae-hoon	Wu Jingyu
2016	Ahmad Abughaush	Jade Jones
2017	Lee Dae-hoon	Bianca Walkden
2018	Lee Dae-hoon	İrem Yaman
2019	Jang Jun

Kick of the Year

Year	Winner
2014
2015	Aaron Cook
2016	Cheick Sallah Cissé
2017	Aaron Cook
2018	Aaron Cook
2019

Fair Play Award

Year	Winner(s)	Event
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019	Mahama Cho and Ruslan Zhaparov	2019 Grand Prix Series 1 men's +80 kg semi-finals

Coach of the Year

Year	Winner	Team/Athlete(s)
2014	Bang Young-in	Mexico national taekwondo team
2015	Gulash Alonso	Egypt national taekwondo team
2016	Reza Mehmandoust	Azerbaijan national taekwondo team
2017	Dragan Jović	Milica Mandić, Tijana Bogdanović, Vanja Stanković (Taekwondo Club Galeb)
2018	Ali Şahin	Turkey national taekwondo team
2019	Reza Mehmandoust	Azerbaijan national taekwondo team

Member National Association (MNA) of the Year

Year	Winner
2014	Mexican Taekwondo Federation
2015	Russian Taekwondo Federation
2016	Azerbaijan Taekwondo Federation
2017	Korea Taekwondo Association
2018	UAE Taekwondo Federation Italian Taekwondo Federation
2019	Russian Taekwondo Federation

Referee of the Year

Year	Winner
	Male	Female
2014	Neydis Tavarez
2015	Tarik Benradi	Kalay Suddai
2016	Kim Song-chul	Maria Merkouri
2017	Abdelkhalek Chbibi	Julie Dib
2018	Mohamed Adel Abdelfattah	Ksenia Choucha
2019	Denis Kim	Ksenia Levai

National Team of the Year

Year	Winner
2014
2015
2016
2017	Korea national taekwondo team
2018
2019

Best Continental Union of the Year

Year	Winner
2014
2015
2016
2017	World Taekwondo Africa
2018
2019

Most Improved MNA of the Year

Year	Winner
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019	Brazilian Taekwondo Federation

References

1. Web site: Find out who got the Awards at the Gala Awards Dinner. 2014-12-08. en.mastkd.com. en-US. 2019-12-19.
2. Web site: WTF honors top athletes at 2015 Gala as announces Canada 2016 Junior Champs. Dec 8. epau84 . news 1 0 . 2015 Slide. 2015-12-08. WTM. en-US. 2019-12-19.
3. Web site: Jones (GBR) and Abughaush (JOR) named Players of the Year. Dec 12. epau84 . news 1 0 . 2016 Slide. 2016-12-12. WTM. en-US. 2019-12-19.
4. Web site: 9-13 December 2016 World Taekwondo GP Final and WTF Gala Awards and World Taekwondo Team Championships Baku, Azerbaijan - Taekwondo WTF Centr-Vostok. centrvostok.wtf-vao.ru. 2019-12-19.
5. Web site: OZ. www.oz.com. 2019-12-19.
6. Web site: Walkden and Lee named Athletes of the Year at World Taekwondo Gala Awards. 6 December 2017. www.insidethegames.biz. 2019-12-19.
7. Web site: Yaman, Lee Named WT's 'Players of the Year' at 5th Annual Gala Awards. Dept. WT Communications. 2018-11-24. World Taekwondo. en-US. 2019-12-19.
8. Web site: Jang and Wongpattanakit crowned athletes of the year at World Taekwondo Gala Awards 2019. Dept. WT Communications. 2019-12-08. World Taekwondo. en-US. 2019-12-19.
9. Web site: Jang and Wongpattanakit crowned athletes of the year at World Taekwondo Gala Awards 2019. 2019-12-12. en.mastkd.com. en-US. 2019-12-19.