Gennady Golovkin Set to Be Elected International Boxing Leader, To Steer Sport Toward Olympic Games in LA 2028

Former world middleweight champion Golovkin will be chosen as the head of World Boxing and guide boxing as it prepares for the 2028 Olympic Games in LA.

Golovkin, who earned a silver medal 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 the upcoming vote. As a result, he will assume leadership of World Boxing, which was established as the authority for amateur Olympic boxing recently.

This position used to be held by the former international boxing body, but it was banished by the International Olympic Committee in the year 2023 following a string of judging, corruption and governance scandals.

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 programme, starting with the 2028 LA Olympics.

“During my amateur career, I proudly won a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, representing not only Kazakhstan but the principles of integrity and hard work that characterize the sport,” he wrote. “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, ensuring financial transparency, advancing tech solutions to ensure impartial scoring, and creating more chances for men and women in every region of the world.”

The IOC organized the boxing tournaments itself at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the 2024 Paris Olympics. Nonetheless, after last year’s Olympics were marred by rows over sex eligibility, it said it needed a new partner by the 2028 Olympics.

In February, it granted recognition to World Boxing, which then hosted the 2025 global tournament in Liverpool. For that event, the organization introduced a mandatory sex screening test, to assess qualification of boxers of both sexes, a move that the Olympic committee is also evaluating for LA 2028.