Golovkin Poised to Become Chosen as World Boxing President, Will Guide 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 prepares for the 2028 Olympic Games in LA.
The boxing legend, who won Olympic silver in Athens in 2004 and went on to make the most world title defences in the history of the middleweight division, 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 became the governing body for amateur Olympic boxing this year.
That role was previously occupied by the former international boxing body, but it was expelled by the International Olympic Committee in the year 2023 following a series of judging, corruption and governance scandals.
In his platform, the boxing veteran, whose first term runs until 2027, promised to rebuild confidence in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic lineup, starting with the Los Angeles 2028.
“During my amateur career, I earned with pride a second-place finish at the 2004 Athens Olympics, representing not only 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, recognized for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to clean competition.
“I am dedicated to improving oversight, 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 directly managed the boxing events at the 2021 Tokyo Games and the Paris 2024 Games. Nonetheless, after last year’s Olympics were overshadowed by disputes about sex eligibility, it said it needed a fresh collaborator by 2028.
In February, it officially recognized World Boxing, which then hosted the 2025 global tournament in Liverpool. For that event, the organization implemented compulsory gender verification, to assess qualification of boxers of both sexes, a step which the IOC is also evaluating for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
