Golovkin Set to Be Chosen as International Boxing Leader, Will Guide Sport Towards Olympic Games in LA 2028

Ex-middleweight world titleholder Gennady Golovkin will be elected president of World Boxing and guide boxing as it heads toward the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.

Golovkin, 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 approved by the sport’s independent vetting panel for Sunday’s election. Consequently, he will take charge of World Boxing, which was established as the authority for Olympic-style amateur boxing recently.

That role was previously occupied by the International Boxing Association, but it was banished by the International Olympic Committee in the year 2023 following a string of judging, corruption and governance scandals.

In his platform, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose initial term lasts through 2027, promised to rebuild confidence in the sport and ensure boxing’s future in the Olympic programme, beginning at the 2028 LA Olympics.

“During my amateur career, I proudly won a second-place finish at the Olympic Games Athens 2004, representing not only Kazakhstan but the principles of integrity and hard work that define Olympic boxing,” he stated. “In my pro career, I became a multiple-time unified world champion, recognized for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to clean competition.

“I am dedicated to improving oversight, guaranteeing open finances, advancing tech solutions to ensure impartial scoring, and expanding opportunities for men and women in every region of the world.”

The IOC directly managed the boxing events at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the Paris 2024 Games. However, after last year’s Olympics were overshadowed by disputes about gender eligibility, it said it needed a fresh collaborator by 2028.

In the month of February, it officially recognized the new boxing federation, which then ran the 2025 world championships in Liverpool. For that event, World Boxing implemented compulsory gender verification, to assess qualification of boxers of both sexes, a step which the IOC is also evaluating for LA 2028.