Golovkin Poised to Become Chosen as World Boxing President, Will Guide Boxing Toward 2028 Los Angeles Olympics
Former world middleweight champion Golovkin will be chosen as the head of the global boxing federation and guide boxing as it heads toward the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
The boxing legend, who won Olympic silver in the 2004 Athens Games and went on to make the highest number of title defenses in middleweight history, is the only presidential candidate endorsed by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for Sunday’s election. As a result, he will assume leadership of World Boxing, which was established as the authority for Olympic-style amateur boxing this year.
That role was previously occupied by the former international boxing body, but it was expelled by the IOC in 2023 following a string of judging, corruption and governance scandals.
In his platform, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose initial term runs until 2027, vowed to rebuild confidence in the sport and ensure boxing’s future in the Olympic programme, starting with the 2028 LA Olympics.
“As an amateur, I proudly won a second-place finish at the Olympic Games Athens 2004, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the values of fair play and discipline that define Olympic boxing,” he wrote. “In my pro career, I won numerous world titles, known for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to clean competition.
“I am committed to improving oversight, ensuring financial transparency, advancing tech solutions 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 Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the 2024 Paris Olympics. Nonetheless, after last year’s Olympics were overshadowed by disputes about sex eligibility, it declared a need for a new partner in time for the 2028 Olympics.
In the month of February, it officially recognized the new boxing federation, which then ran the 2025 world championships in Liverpool. For the championships, the organization implemented compulsory gender verification, to assess qualification of boxers of both sexes, a move that the IOC is also considering for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
