Gennady Golovkin Set to Be Chosen as World Boxing President, Will Guide Boxing Towards Olympic Games in LA 2028
Former world middleweight champion Golovkin will be chosen as the head of the global boxing federation and lead the sport as it prepares for the 2028 Olympic Games in LA.
The boxing legend, who won Olympic silver in Athens in 2004 and achieved the most world title defences in middleweight history, is the only presidential candidate endorsed by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for Sunday’s election. 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 International Olympic Committee in 2023 following a series of controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.
In his platform, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose first term lasts through 2027, vowed to restore trust in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic programme, starting with the 2028 LA Olympics.
“During my amateur career, I earned with pride a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the principles of integrity and hard work that characterize the sport,” he stated. “In my pro career, I won numerous world titles, recognized for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to clean competition.
“I am dedicated to strengthening governance, guaranteeing open finances, developing technology to ensure impartial scoring, and expanding opportunities for athletes of all genders in every region of the world.”
The International Olympic Committee organized the boxing tournaments itself at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the 2024 Paris Olympics. Nonetheless, after the recent Games were overshadowed by rows over gender eligibility, it said it needed a fresh collaborator in time for 2028.
In February, it officially recognized the new boxing federation, which then ran the 2025 world championships in the city of Liverpool. For the championships, World Boxing implemented compulsory gender verification, to assess qualification of boxers of both sexes, a step which the IOC is also evaluating for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
