🔗 Share this article

Former world middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin will be chosen as the head of World Boxing and guide boxing as it heads toward the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.

Golovkin, who won Olympic silver in the 2004 Athens Games and went on to make the most world title defences in the history of the middleweight division, is the sole nominee for president endorsed by the sport’s independent vetting panel for Sunday’s election. Consequently, he will assume leadership of the boxing governing body, which was established as the authority for Olympic-style amateur boxing recently.

This position was previously occupied by the International Boxing Association, but it was banished by the International Olympic Committee in the year 2023 following a string of controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.

In his manifesto, the boxing veteran, whose initial term runs until 2027, vowed to restore trust in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic programme, starting with the 2028 LA Olympics.

“As an amateur, I earned with pride a second-place finish at the Olympic Games Athens 2004, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the values of fair play and discipline that characterize the sport,” he stated. “As a professional, I became a multiple-time unified world champion, known for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to fair play.

“I am committed to strengthening governance, guaranteeing open finances, advancing tech solutions to ensure impartial scoring, and expanding opportunities for men and women in all corners of the globe.”

The IOC organized the boxing tournaments itself at the 2021 Tokyo Games and the 2024 Paris Olympics. Nonetheless, after last year’s Olympics were overshadowed by rows over sex eligibility, it said it needed a new partner by 2028.

In February, it officially recognized the new boxing federation, which then ran the 2025 world championships in the city of Liverpool. For the championships, World Boxing implemented compulsory gender verification, to determine the eligibility of boxers of both sexes, a step which the IOC is also considering for LA 2028.