Golovkin Set to Be Chosen as International Boxing President, To Steer Sport Towards Olympic Games in LA 2028
Former world middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin is slated to be elected president of the global boxing federation and guide boxing as it prepares for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
The boxing legend, who won Olympic silver in Athens in 2004 and went on to make the highest number of title defenses in the history of the middleweight division, is the only presidential candidate approved by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for Sunday’s election. Consequently, he will take charge of World Boxing, which was established as the authority for amateur Olympic boxing this year.
That role was previously occupied by the former international boxing body, but it was expelled by the IOC in 2023 following a string of judging, corruption and governance scandals.
In his manifesto, the boxing veteran, whose initial term lasts through 2027, promised to rebuild confidence in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic programme, starting with the Los Angeles 2028.
“During my amateur career, I proudly won a second-place finish at the Olympic Games Athens 2004, representing not only Kazakhstan but the values of fair play and discipline that define Olympic boxing,” he wrote. “In my pro career, I became a multiple-time unified world champion, recognized for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to clean competition.
“I am dedicated to improving oversight, guaranteeing open finances, advancing tech solutions to guarantee fair judging, and expanding opportunities for men and women in all corners of the globe.”
The International Olympic Committee organized the boxing tournaments itself at the 2021 Tokyo Games and the 2024 Paris Olympics. Nonetheless, after the recent Games were overshadowed by disputes about gender eligibility, it said it needed a new partner by 2028.
In February, it officially recognized the new boxing federation, which then ran the 2025 world championships in the city of Liverpool. For that event, World Boxing implemented compulsory gender verification, to assess qualification of boxers of both sexes, a step which the Olympic committee is also considering for LA 2028.
