Golovkin Poised to Become Chosen as World Boxing President, To Steer Sport Towards Olympic Games in LA 2028
Ex-middleweight world titleholder Gennady Golovkin will be chosen as the head of World Boxing and guide boxing as it prepares for the 2028 Olympic Games in LA.
The boxing legend, who earned a silver medal in Athens in 2004 and achieved the highest number of title defenses in middleweight history, is the sole nominee for president endorsed by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for the upcoming vote. Consequently, he will assume leadership of the boxing governing body, which became the governing body for Olympic-style amateur boxing this year.
That role was previously occupied by the International Boxing Association, but it was expelled by the IOC in the year 2023 following a string 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 lineup, beginning at the Los Angeles 2028.
“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 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 guarantee fair judging, 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 2021 Tokyo Games and the Paris 2024 Games. Nonetheless, after last year’s Olympics were overshadowed by disputes about gender eligibility, it said it needed a fresh collaborator in time for the 2028 Olympics.
In the month of February, it granted recognition to World Boxing, which then ran the 2025 world championships in Liverpool. For that event, World Boxing implemented compulsory gender verification, to assess qualification of male and female athletes, a move that the Olympic committee is also considering for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
