Balázs Fürjes, the co-chairman of the Local Organising Committee, has put forward the volunteers from the Championships in Hungary’s capital to the International Fair Play Committee (CIFP).

Earlier this week, the CIPF, in association with World Athletics, launched its annual competition and invited the public to nominate moments that epitomise fair play with a view to recognising one standout athlete or moment at the World Athletics Awards later this year.

The army of volunteers were widely praised, including by World Athletics President Sebastian Coe at the event's Closing Ceremony on Sunday (August 27).

"In agreement with [World Athletics President] Sebastian Coe, as the co-chairman of the Organising Committee of the Budapest 2023 Athletics World Championships, I nominated the volunteers of the World Cup for the International Fair Play Award," Fürjes revealed.

"Two-and-a-half thousand volunteers of the World Championship showed our guests and the Hungarian audience the most beautiful face of Hungary.

"They worked with their heart and soul and were incredibly professional.

"If anyone asked or asked anything, two expressions must have been missing from their dictionary: they never said that it is ‘impossible’ or that ‘I do not know’.

"They were always fresh, helpful, friendly, they were looking for a solution in every situation and they always found it.

"For nine days they were Hungary's leading diplomats, 2,500 Hungarian ambassadors, who represented our country excellently."

Szilvia Perenyi, the director of volunteers for Budapest 2023, is confident that those who took part would also benefit from the experience of interacting with athletes, officials and spectators from all around the world.

"The volunteer programme has two roles and two aims," she said. 

"One is to serve the event to make sure that the event happening. 

"But on the other hand, we are also having the task of providing the volunteer the once in a lifetime experience with friendships with communities and with all kinds of experiences."

The CIFP was established in France in 1963 by members of UNESCO, the International Sports Press Association and several sports, including FIFA, the International Basketball Association and the International Rugby Board.

The Committee presented its first award two years later to Eugenio Monti, an Italian bobsledder, who had given a spare part to rival Tony Nash at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck and which enabled the Briton to go on to win the gold medal.

Since then, a number of outstanding personalities, teams and organisations have received the CIFP World Fair Play Prizes.

Among the past winners in athletics are Ukraine’s Sergey Bubka, Kenya’s Kipchoge Keino and the Czech Republic’s Emil Zatopek.

Other recipients have included Hungarian boxer László Papp, Spanish cyclist Miguel Indurain, English footballer Sir Bobby Charlton, Canadian ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky and Swedish tennis player Stefan Edberg.

The CIFP’s first collaboration with World Athletics dates back to the 2003 World Championships in Paris.

Britain’s Holly Bradshaw and the United States’ Katie Nageotte were the latest recipients of the award at the World Championships in Oregon.

Bradshaw injured herself after her pole snapped during the pole vault warm-up session.

Her fellow competitor Nageotte immediately went over to support her.

Knowing she would no longer be able to contend for a place in the final, Bradshaw withdrew from the competition, thus allowing another athlete to advance.

As a result she received a lot of abuse on social media for withdrawing, but Nageotte again offered support by taking to Twitter in defence of her competitor.

The CIFP has been headed since 2000 by Hungarian Jenő Kamuti, a double Olympic fencing silver medallist.

"He sees a good chance for my nomination to reach the goal and the volunteers of the World Athletics Championships in Budapest to receive the International Fair Play prize," Balázs said.

In a change to previous years, CIFP and World Athletics have extended the nominations period beyond the World Athletics Championships to include all World Athletics Series events and Continental Tour events throughout the course of the year.

Following the final World Athletics Series event of the year, the World Road Running Championships in Riga in Latvia, in October, a jury will be empanelled to review the nominations and judge on a shortlist of five fair play moments in athletics from 2023.

Fans will then be asked to cast their votes through the World Athletics social media channels for the shortlisted moment.

These votes will be combined with the votes from the jury to determine three finalists for the Fair Play Award.

The winner is due to be revealed at the World Athletics Awards in Monaco in December.