Gennady Golovkin Poised to Become Chosen as International Boxing President, To Steer Boxing Towards Olympic Games in LA 2028
Former world middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin will be chosen as the head of World Boxing and guide boxing as it prepares for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
Golovkin, who earned a silver medal in the 2004 Athens Games and achieved the most world title defences in middleweight history, is the sole nominee for president endorsed by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for the upcoming vote. Consequently, he will assume leadership of the boxing governing body, which became the governing body for Olympic-style amateur boxing recently.
This position was previously occupied by the former international boxing body, but it was expelled by the IOC in the year 2023 following a string of judging, corruption and governance scandals.
In his manifesto, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose initial term lasts through 2027, promised to rebuild confidence in the sport and ensure boxing’s future in the Olympic lineup, beginning at the 2028 LA Olympics.
“During my amateur career, I earned with pride a silver medal at the Olympic Games Athens 2004, representing not only Kazakhstan but the values of fair play and discipline that define Olympic boxing,” he wrote. “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, ensuring financial transparency, advancing tech solutions 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 2024 Paris Olympics. Nonetheless, after the recent Games were marred by disputes about sex eligibility, it declared a need for a fresh collaborator in time for 2028.
In February, it granted recognition to the new boxing federation, which then ran the 2025 world championships in Liverpool. For the championships, the organization introduced a mandatory sex screening test, to assess qualification of male and female athletes, a step which the Olympic committee is also considering for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
