The chair of the Athletes Committee is due to be Spanish karateka Sandra Sanchez.

She will be joined by Australian flying disc player Cat Phillips, Andrés Acuña, a racquetball player from Costa Rica, the Swiss floorball player Matthias Hofbauer, the Indian archer Abhishek Verma, Justyna Możdżonek, a dancesport competitor from Poland and the Canadian powerlifter Rhaea Stinn.

The IWGA office member Guilleme Felli will support the panel, with Jan Fransoo from the Executive Committee also providing assistance to the athletes.

"The current IWGA Athletes’ Committee has an interim status until September 2025," said Fransoo.

"We communicated with our federations and asked them to provide us with suitable candidates.

"Gender equality was important to us in this process. 

"In addition, the athlete representatives should come from all over the world and clearly show the diversity of the sport within The World Games family. 

"Above all we asked for confident and experienced athletes."

Sanchez, who won a gold medal at the Birmingham 2022 World Games, is ready to take on the responsibility after attending an IWGA Board meeting in Madrid.

"The committee will make the athletes' voice and assessment heard, and influence the IWGA's decisions for the benefit of the participants in the Games," said Sanchez.

"I feel very honoured to be able to lead the committee after finishing my active career in sport, and I’m looking forward to this new task."

IWGA President José Perurena, who invited Sanchez to the meeting, explained the importance of the Athletes Committee.

"One of our basic principles is that we put the athletes and their needs at the centre," said Perurena.

"The establishment of this Interim Athletes’ Committee is another step on the way to putting this principle into practice. 

"We are thus following the guidelines we set ourselves in the strategy paper 'Growth Beyond Excellence'.”

The next World Games will be in Chengdu, China in 2025, with 5,000 athletes anticipated to perform in 18 events.