Gennady Golovkin Poised to Become Chosen as International Boxing President, To Steer Boxing Towards Olympic Games in LA 2028
Former world middleweight champion Golovkin is slated to be chosen as the head of the global boxing federation and lead the sport as it heads toward the 2028 Olympic Games in LA.
Golovkin, who won Olympic silver in Athens in 2004 and achieved the highest number of title defenses in the history of the middleweight division, is the only presidential candidate approved by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for Sunday’s election. As a result, he will take charge of the boxing governing body, which became the governing body for Olympic-style amateur boxing this year.
That role used to be held by the International Boxing Association, but it was banished by the IOC in the year 2023 following a series of controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.
In his manifesto, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose initial term lasts through 2027, vowed to rebuild confidence in the sport and ensure boxing’s future in the Olympic lineup, starting with the 2028 LA Olympics.
“During my amateur career, I earned with pride a silver medal 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 won numerous world titles, recognized for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to fair play.
“I am committed to strengthening governance, guaranteeing open finances, advancing tech solutions to guarantee fair judging, 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. However, after the recent Games were overshadowed by disputes about sex eligibility, it said it needed a new partner by 2028.
In the month of February, it granted recognition to the new boxing federation, which then ran the 2025 world championships in Liverpool. For that event, the organization implemented compulsory gender verification, to assess qualification of male and female athletes, a step which the Olympic committee is also evaluating for LA 2028.
