Gennady Golovkin Set to Be Chosen as World Boxing Leader, To Steer Sport Toward 2028 Los Angeles Olympics
Ex-middleweight world titleholder Gennady Golovkin will be elected president of World Boxing and lead the sport 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 most world title defences in the history of the middleweight division, is the sole nominee for president endorsed by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for Sunday’s election. As a result, he will take charge of the boxing governing body, which became the governing body for amateur Olympic boxing recently.
That role was previously occupied by the former international boxing body, but it was banished by the IOC in the year 2023 following a series of controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.
In his platform, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose initial term lasts through 2027, promised to restore trust in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic programme, starting with the 2028 LA Olympics.
“During my amateur career, I proudly won a second-place finish at the Olympic Games Athens 2004, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the principles of integrity and hard work that characterize the sport,” he wrote. “As a professional, I became a multiple-time unified world champion, known for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to clean competition.
“I am dedicated to strengthening governance, ensuring financial transparency, developing technology to guarantee fair judging, and creating more chances for athletes of all genders in all corners of the globe.”
The IOC directly managed the boxing events at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the 2024 Paris Olympics. Nonetheless, after the recent Games were overshadowed by rows over gender eligibility, it declared a need for a fresh collaborator in time for 2028.
In February, it granted recognition to World Boxing, which then hosted the 2025 global tournament in Liverpool. For that event, World Boxing introduced a mandatory sex screening test, to determine the eligibility of male and female athletes, a move that the Olympic committee is also evaluating for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
