Thailand's Wongpattanakit and Italian Alessio both won Grand Prix titles and followed up with Female Athlete of the Year and Male Athlete of the Year honours, respectively.

Alessio's comes after a season where he won Rome and Paris Grand Prix legs, the final in Riyadh and a European title in Manchester.

Wongpattanakit won Manchester and Paris Grands Prix, the overall title, a Southeast Asian Games gold medal in Hanoi and a World Championship bronze in Guadalajara.

Wongpattanakit is also a two-time Olympic medallist and the reigning women's under-49 kilograms champion.

A peer vote determined the victorious athletes.

World Taekwondo President Chungwon Choue also recognised two country's with the MNA of the Year prize, in a departure from tradition.

Jordan and Saudi Arabia, where the Gala Awards was staged, were the two.

Having two overall Grand Prix champions and its longstanding support for the Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation's flagship academy in the country was cited for the Jordan Taekwondo Federation deserving the prize.

Saudi Arabia was rewarded for having held the Grand Prix final and, in 2021, the first-ever World Taekwondo Women's Open Championships.

The oil-rich nation is making an aggressive push to establish itself as a destination for combat sports, leading to it being accused of sportswashing and seeking to accrue soft power.

Choue was among those who attended the Saudi Games earlier this year, where large prize money was on offer.

Next year's World Combat Games in Riyadh, where taekwondo will be on the programme, is to be in Riyadh, while Saudi Arabia is due to stage the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games in 2025 and later the Asian Games in 2034, plus the 2029 Asian Winter Games at a resort which has not yet been built.

This has placed some scrutiny on Saudi Arabia's record on human rights, which ranges from severely restricting women's freedoms to the state-ordered assassination of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi and leading a coalition which has carried out deadly airstrikes across Yemen since 2015.

Ukraine won a Fighting Spirit Award and Continental Union of the Year went to the Pan American Taekwondo Union (PATU).

The PATU staged this year's World Championships in Guadalajara and received credit for integrating Para taekwondo into its own awards held in the same Mexican city.

Coach of the Year went to Serbia's Dragan Jovic and Kick of the Year - selected by the Technical Committee - was won by Mexico's Daniela Paola Suza for a spinning roundhouse delivered to the head at the World Championships.

South Korean Park Soo-kyung and Tunisia's Anouer Djlassi received top refereeing honours.