Chovy beats ZywOo to Esports Athlete of the Year at the Game Awards 2025

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 12/12/2025

Gen.G League of Legends (LoL) star Jeong ‘Chovy’ Ji-hoon picked up another individual award at the Game Awards 2025.

Chovy was crowned Player of the Year at the League Awards 2025 earlier this month.

And now he has beaten stiff competition to be awarded the Esports Athlete of the Year at the Game Awards.

Chovy is considered by many to be the best LoL player in the World currently, at least in better form than Lee ‘Faker’ Sang-hyeok.

The Korean midlaner won two LCK splits and the LoL Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) for the second year in a row.

He was also crowned the MSI finals MVP, the LCK Regular Round MVP, and received more Player of the Match awards than other LCK pro.

Yet, when Chovy was awarded the League Awards’ Player of the Year trophy, he wasn’t sure he deserved it.

This was because Chovy is still waiting for his first LoL World Championship, as T1 and Faker won LoL Worlds for the third year in a row.

Gen.G failed to reach the final again after being surprisingly eliminated by KT Rolster in the semi-finals.

Still, Chovy’s Game Awards win earned him recognition from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Republic of Korea.

The congratulatory message read:

“This accolade is a valuable reward for your efforts, Jung Ji-hoon, which have consistently demonstrated world-class competitive prowess over many years through your dazzling skill, talent, and relentless self-improvement.

“Its significance is particularly profound as it serves as a triumph that once again showcases the stature of Korean esports to the world as the birthplace of the sport.

“We extend our congratulations once more on this award and wish Jung Ji-hoon, along with all Korean esports athletes, continued success in proudly writing new chapters of history.”

Was ZywOo robbed at the Game Awards?

Amongst the nominees were NRG’s Valorant Champions 2025 winner Brock ‘brawk‘ Somerhalder and Paper Rex‘s Valorant Masters Toronto winner Jason ‘F0rsakeN‘ Susanto.

There were also two FGC stars in Street Fighter 6 Evo champion Saul ‘MenaRD‘ Leonardo and now-retired Capcom Cup 11 winner Kakeru ‘Kakeru’ Watanabe.

However, the final nominee was Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) superstar Mathieu ‘ZywOo‘ Herbaut and there was a lot of anger that he did not win the award.

The AWPer led Team Vitality to a legendary win streak in CS2 earlier this year, winning eight consecutive trophies.

And in all of those Major wins, ZywOo was clearly the MVP and star of the remarkable team.

ZywOo missing out on the award is a surpirse, especially as Team Vitality were awarded Best Esports Organisation and CS2 won Best Esports title at this year’s Game Awards too.

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

In my seven years of esports writing, I've introduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I'm most proud of the latter.

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