Ex-middleweight world titleholder Gennady Golovkin is slated to be elected president 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 the 2004 Athens Games and achieved the highest number of title defenses in middleweight history, is the sole nominee for president approved by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for the upcoming vote. As a result, he will assume leadership of World Boxing, which became the governing body for amateur Olympic boxing recently.
This position used to be held by the former international boxing body, but it was expelled by the International Olympic Committee in the year 2023 following a string of controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.
In his platform, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose initial term lasts through 2027, vowed to restore trust in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic programme, beginning at the 2028 LA Olympics.
“As an amateur, I earned with pride a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the principles of integrity and hard work that define Olympic boxing,” he stated. “As a professional, I became a multiple-time unified world champion, recognized for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to fair play.
“I am dedicated to improving oversight, guaranteeing open finances, advancing tech solutions to ensure impartial scoring, and creating more chances for men and women in all corners of the globe.”
The International Olympic Committee organized the boxing tournaments itself at the 2021 Tokyo Games and the Paris 2024 Games. However, after last year’s Olympics were overshadowed by disputes about sex eligibility, it said it needed a new partner by 2028.
In the month of February, it officially recognized the new boxing federation, which then ran the 2025 world championships in the city of Liverpool. For that event, the organization introduced a mandatory sex screening test, to determine the eligibility of boxers of both sexes, a step which the Olympic committee is also considering for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
