Golovkin Poised to Become Elected 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 World Boxing and lead the sport as it heads toward the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
Golovkin, who won Olympic silver in the 2004 Athens Games and achieved the highest number of title defenses in the history of the middleweight division, is the sole nominee for president approved by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for the upcoming vote. As a result, he will assume leadership 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 the year 2023 following a string of judging, corruption and governance scandals.
In his manifesto, the boxing veteran, whose first term lasts through 2027, vowed to rebuild confidence in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic lineup, starting with the 2028 LA Olympics.
“During my amateur career, I proudly won a silver medal at the Olympic Games Athens 2004, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the principles of integrity and hard work that characterize the sport,” he wrote. “In my pro career, I became a multiple-time unified world champion, recognized for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to fair play.
“I am dedicated to strengthening governance, ensuring financial transparency, developing technology to ensure impartial scoring, and creating more chances for athletes of all genders in all corners of the globe.”
The International Olympic Committee organized the boxing tournaments itself at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the 2024 Paris Olympics. However, after the recent Games were overshadowed by rows over sex eligibility, it said it needed a new partner by the 2028 Olympics.
In the month of February, it granted recognition to World Boxing, which then ran the 2025 world championships in Liverpool. For that event, World Boxing implemented compulsory gender verification, to determine the eligibility of boxers of both sexes, a move that the IOC is also evaluating for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
