Golovkin Poised to Become Chosen as International Boxing President, Will Guide Sport Towards Olympic Games in LA 2028
Former world middleweight champion Golovkin will be chosen as the head of World Boxing 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 middleweight history, is the only presidential candidate approved by the sport’s independent vetting panel for Sunday’s election. Consequently, he will assume leadership of World Boxing, which became the governing body for amateur Olympic boxing recently.
That role was previously occupied by the International Boxing Association, but it was banished by the International Olympic Committee in 2023 following a series of controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.
In his platform, the boxing veteran, whose first term lasts through 2027, promised to restore trust in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic lineup, beginning at the Los Angeles 2028.
“During my amateur career, I proudly won 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 wrote. “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, ensuring financial transparency, advancing tech solutions to ensure impartial scoring, and expanding opportunities for men and women in all corners of the globe.”
The International Olympic Committee directly managed the boxing events at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the Paris 2024 Games. Nonetheless, after the recent Games were overshadowed by rows over sex eligibility, it said it needed a fresh collaborator in time for the 2028 Olympics.
In the month of February, it granted recognition to World Boxing, which then hosted the 2025 global tournament in Liverpool. For the championships, the organization introduced a mandatory sex screening test, to assess qualification of male and female athletes, a move that the Olympic committee is also evaluating for LA 2028.