Gennady Golovkin Poised to Become Chosen as World Boxing President, Will Guide Sport Toward Olympic Games in LA 2028
Ex-middleweight world titleholder Golovkin will be chosen as the head of World Boxing and guide boxing as it prepares for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
The boxing legend, who earned a silver medal in Athens in 2004 and went on to make the highest number of title defenses in middleweight history, is the only presidential candidate approved by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for the upcoming vote. 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 expelled by the International Olympic Committee in the year 2023 following a series of controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.
In his platform, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose first term runs until 2027, vowed to restore trust 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 2004 Athens Olympics, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the values of fair play and discipline that define Olympic boxing,” he stated. “As a professional, I became a multiple-time unified world champion, known for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to clean competition.
“I am committed to improving oversight, guaranteeing open finances, developing technology to ensure impartial scoring, and creating more chances for athletes of all genders in every region of the world.”
The IOC organized the boxing tournaments itself at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the Paris 2024 Games. However, after last year’s Olympics were marred by disputes about sex eligibility, it declared a need for a fresh collaborator in time for the 2028 Olympics.
In February, it officially recognized World Boxing, which then ran the 2025 world championships in the city of Liverpool. For the championships, the organization introduced a mandatory sex screening test, to assess qualification of boxers of both sexes, a move that the Olympic committee is also considering for LA 2028.
