Peruvian squash star Diego Elias has reached the final of The World Games Athlete of the Year Award after being one of the ten most voted for athletes on The World Games website.

TWG Athlete of the Year is an annual competition by the International World Games Association (IWGA), which governs The World Games under the patronage of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Squash has been well represented at the Athlete of the Year awards in recent years, with Malaysia’s Nicol David being voted TWG Greatest Athlete of All Time in 2020, while France’s Victor Crouin and Egypt’s Amina Orfi reached the finals stage of the Athlete of the Year for 2022 and 2023, respectively.

This year, Elias has the chance to join his fellow squash stars in TWG record books.

In May, the current World No.3 made history by becoming the first ever South American squash player to be crowned world champion after defeating Egypt’s Mostafa Asal in the CIB PSA World Championships in Cairo, with that final victory following impressive wins over World No.1 Ali Farag in the semi-final and former world champion Karim Abdel Gawad in the quarter-final.

Elias added four more trophies to his burgeoning collection in 2024, with the Peruvian also winning the Motor City Open, the Canadian Open, the Qatar Classic and the Pan American Championship.

Last month, Elias capped off the year by making more history for Peru, with the 28-year-old leading his country to its debut at the WSF World Squash Team Championships at Hong Kong Football Club. Elias was a crucial part of the team, winning all seven of his matches as Peru finished 18th out of 26.

How to vote for Athlete of the Year

You can vote for TWG Athlete of the Year on theworldgames.org.

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 one vote goes to a second-choice candidate. A vote given to one candidate only will not be registered.

Voting ends at 12.00 GMT on Friday 31st January.