Gennady Golovkin Poised to Become Elected World Boxing President, To Steer Sport Towards Olympic Games in LA 2028
Former world middleweight champion Golovkin will be elected president of the global boxing federation and lead the sport as it heads toward the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
The boxing legend, 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 independent vetting panel for Sunday’s election. As a result, he will assume leadership of the boxing governing body, which became the governing body for Olympic-style amateur boxing recently.
This position used to be held by the International Boxing Association, but it was banished by the IOC in 2023 following a string of controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.
In his manifesto, the boxing veteran, 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.
“During my amateur career, I proudly won a second-place finish at the 2004 Athens Olympics, representing not only Kazakhstan but the principles of integrity and hard work that characterize the sport,” he wrote. “As a professional, I won numerous world titles, recognized 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 men and women in all corners of the globe.”
The IOC organized the boxing tournaments itself at the 2021 Tokyo Games and the Paris 2024 Games. Nonetheless, after the recent Games were marred by disputes about gender eligibility, it declared a need for a fresh collaborator in time for 2028.
In the month of February, it granted recognition to the new boxing federation, which then ran the 2025 world championships in the city of Liverpool. For the championships, World Boxing introduced a mandatory sex screening test, to assess qualification of male and female athletes, a move that the IOC is also evaluating for LA 2028.
