Between December 9 and 10, the World Taekwondo Grand Prix Final will take place in Baku’s Sarhadchi Olympic Sports Complex.

The event invites 128 top Olympic-ranked athletes, fighting in four female and four male weight categories, to earn ranking points in advance of the 2017 fighting season.

A host of Olympic medal winners will be in action, with local eyes set to be on Radik Isaev, Azerbaijan’s Rio 2016 gold medallist in the men’s middleweight category.

On December 11, the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) Gala Awards will then take centre stage in Baku’s Badamdar Hotel.

The event, now in its third year, will reward the best players, best kick, best referees, best coach and best member national association of the year, as chosen by their peers in on-site voting.

During last year's awards in Mexico City, the 2015 Female Player of the Year award was won by China’s Jingyu Wu while South Korea’s Dae-hoon Lee took the men's prize.

Between December 12 and 13, the World Taekwondo Team Championships will then take place, also at the Sarhadchi Olympic Sports Complex.

Eight national teams per gender division will be competing for honours.

For the first time, mixed-gender teams will take to the field of play in an inaugural event, thus giving the championships three winning teams - one female, one male and one mixed.

“Rio 2016 was the best Olympics ever for taekwondo, but many players are already thinking about the 2020 Olympic cycle, so the Grand Prix final in Baku offers athletes on the path to Tokyo early ranking points,” said WTF President Chungwon Choue.

“The Gala Awards is our way of thanking our athletes and officials by offering them an evening of glamour, then we end our week in Baku with the Team Championships, which always deliver edge-of-seat action.”

The week of events will be preceded, on December 8, with an all-day meeting of the WTF Athletes' Committee.

The agenda includes discussions with members of the WTF Technical Committee.