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Udo-Udoma is The World Games Athlete of the Month

01 Jul. 2020

Udo-Udoma is The World Games Athlete of the Month

USA beach handball international Ebiye Jeremy Udo-Udoma has won the prestigious International World Games Association (IWGA) World Games Athlete of the Month award for June 2020.

Udo-Udoma, who celebrated his 27th birthday in June, took home the award which recognises outstanding athletes in the sporting disciplines of the World Games.

The award also acknowledged his support and activities for the IWGA ‘Stay at Home – Train at Home’ campaign. 

The campaign, which was launched in April during the global lockdown for the current COVID-19 outbreak, was started by the IWGA to “…encourage everyone to stay active, but to stay at home,” with “World Games athletes from all around the world sending videos showing how it is possible to train without leaving your home with a clear message from the athletes to sports fans of ‘We don’t give up, and we Stay at Home!”


Udo-Udoma helped launch and actively participated in the campaign, with his first video seeing him training at home, using a toilet roll instead of a ball, and joining up – virtually – with USA teammate Loc Nguyen, while his second video showed him outside, doing a variety of flexible exercises.

Earlier this year it was announced that the next edition of the IWGA World Games in Birmingham, Alabama, USA – originally scheduled for 2021 – would be put back to 7 to 17 July 2022, following the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, with Alabama holding a special place for Udo-Udoma.

“I am looking forward to [it] where we will be able to compete as hosts, and I’m excited for a number of reasons,” he said to IHF.info last September.

“I used to live in Alabama, and it was where I got my start in beach handball at the 2015 American Open Beach Handball Championships, I was introduced to beach handball and fell in love with it there, and since travelled the world. To get the opportunity to share the sport I love, the spectacle of handball to a large, sport-loving audience like they have in Alabama is an experience I am looking forward to.”

Udo-Udoma is one of the most high-profile beach handball athletes in the world, regularly traveling the globe to promote the sport with his positive attitude and nature. He helped set up the ‘Beach Handball Dream Team’, featuring a variety of different national team players from around the world in 2018 and in addition to his training videos in lockdown, he worked remotely with Argentinean IHF beach handball referee Lorena Mac Coll to run through some beach handball rules on IGTV.

The IHF would like to congratulate Udo-Udoma on his award and thank him for his continued support of the sport worldwide.

For further information on the IWGA World Games 2022, or The World Games generally, visit their website. You can follow Udo-Udoma on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.