🔗 Share this article

Former world middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin will be chosen as the head of the global boxing federation and lead the sport as it heads toward the 2028 Olympic Games in LA.

The boxing legend, who earned a silver medal in Athens in 2004 and went on to make the most world title defences in the history of the middleweight division, is the only presidential candidate endorsed by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for the upcoming vote. Consequently, he will assume leadership of World Boxing, which became the governing body for amateur Olympic boxing this year.

This position was previously occupied by the former international boxing body, but it was expelled by the IOC in the year 2023 following a series of judging, corruption and governance scandals.

In his manifesto, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose first term lasts through 2027, vowed to rebuild confidence in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic lineup, beginning at the 2028 LA Olympics.

“During my amateur career, I proudly won a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, representing not only Kazakhstan but the principles of integrity and hard work that characterize the sport,” he stated. “As a professional, I won numerous world titles, recognized for my integrity, respect, and commitment to clean competition.

“I am dedicated to strengthening governance, ensuring financial transparency, developing technology to guarantee fair judging, 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 2024 Paris Olympics. Nonetheless, after the recent Games were marred by disputes about sex eligibility, it declared a need for a fresh collaborator by the 2028 Olympics.

In February, it granted recognition to World Boxing, which then ran the 2025 world championships in Liverpool. For that event, World Boxing introduced a mandatory sex screening test, to assess qualification of boxers of both sexes, a step which the IOC is also evaluating for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.