Golovkin Set to Be Chosen as International Boxing President, Will Guide Sport Towards Olympic Games in LA 2028
Ex-middleweight world titleholder Gennady Golovkin will be elected president of the global boxing federation and lead the sport as it prepares for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
Golovkin, who earned a silver medal in the 2004 Athens Games and went on to make the highest number of title defenses in middleweight history, is the only presidential candidate endorsed by the sport’s independent vetting panel for the upcoming vote. Consequently, he will take charge of World Boxing, which became the governing body for Olympic-style amateur boxing this year.
This position was previously occupied by the International Boxing Association, but it was expelled by the IOC in 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, promised to rebuild confidence in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic programme, beginning at the 2028 LA Olympics.
“As an amateur, I proudly won a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the values of fair play and discipline that characterize the sport,” he stated. “In my pro career, I won numerous world titles, 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 creating more chances 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 2024 Paris Olympics. However, after last year’s Olympics were marred by rows over sex eligibility, it said it needed a fresh collaborator in time for the 2028 Olympics.
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, World Boxing implemented compulsory gender verification, to determine the eligibility of boxers of both sexes, a move that the Olympic committee is also evaluating for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
