Gennady Golovkin Set to Be Chosen as World Boxing Leader, To Steer Sport Toward Olympic Games in LA 2028
Ex-middleweight world titleholder Gennady Golovkin is slated to be elected president of World Boxing and lead the sport as it heads toward the 2028 Olympic Games in LA.
The boxing legend, who won Olympic silver in Athens in 2004 and achieved the highest number of title defenses in the history of the middleweight division, is the sole nominee for president endorsed by the sport’s independent vetting panel for Sunday’s election. As a result, he will assume leadership of the boxing governing body, which became the governing body for Olympic-style amateur boxing this year.
This position used to be held by the former international boxing body, but it was banished by the IOC in the year 2023 following a string of judging, corruption and governance scandals.
In his platform, the boxing veteran, whose initial term runs until 2027, vowed to restore trust in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic lineup, beginning at the Los Angeles 2028.
“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 define Olympic boxing,” he wrote. “As a professional, I won numerous world titles, recognized for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to clean competition.
“I am dedicated to strengthening governance, ensuring financial transparency, developing technology to ensure impartial scoring, and expanding opportunities for men and women in all corners of the globe.”
The International Olympic Committee directly managed the boxing events at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the 2024 Paris Olympics. Nonetheless, after the recent Games were overshadowed by disputes about sex eligibility, it declared a need for a fresh collaborator by the 2028 Olympics.
In February, it officially recognized the new boxing federation, which then ran the 2025 world championships in Liverpool. For that event, the organization implemented compulsory gender verification, to determine the eligibility of boxers of both sexes, a move that the IOC is also evaluating for LA 2028.
