Gennady Golovkin Set to Be Chosen as International Boxing President, Will Guide Boxing Towards Olympic Games in LA 2028
Former world middleweight champion Golovkin is slated to be elected president of the global boxing federation and lead the sport as it heads toward the 2028 Olympic Games in LA.
Golovkin, who won Olympic silver in Athens in 2004 and achieved the highest number of title defenses in middleweight history, is the only presidential candidate approved by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for Sunday’s election. As a result, he will take charge of World Boxing, which was established as the authority for amateur Olympic boxing recently.
That role used to be held 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 manifesto, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose initial term lasts through 2027, vowed to rebuild confidence in the sport and ensure boxing’s future in the Olympic lineup, beginning at the 2028 LA Olympics.
“As an amateur, 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. “As a professional, I won numerous world titles, recognized for my integrity, respect, and commitment to clean competition.
“I am committed 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 directly managed the boxing events at the 2021 Tokyo Games and the 2024 Paris Olympics. Nonetheless, after last year’s Olympics were overshadowed by rows over sex eligibility, it said it needed a fresh collaborator by 2028.
In the month of February, it granted recognition to the new boxing federation, which then hosted the 2025 global tournament in the city of Liverpool. For that event, the organization implemented compulsory gender verification, to assess qualification of male and female athletes, a step which the IOC is also evaluating for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
