Golovkin Set to Be Chosen as World Boxing Leader, To Steer Sport Toward Olympic Games in LA 2028
Former world middleweight champion Golovkin will be elected president of World Boxing and guide boxing as it heads toward the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
The boxing legend, who earned a silver medal in Athens in 2004 and went on to make the highest number of title defenses in middleweight history, is the sole nominee for president approved by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for the upcoming vote. As a result, he will take charge of World Boxing, which was established as the authority for Olympic-style amateur boxing recently.
This position used to be held by the former international boxing body, but it was banished by the IOC in the year 2023 following a series of judging, corruption and governance scandals.
In his platform, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose initial term lasts through 2027, vowed to restore trust in the sport and ensure boxing’s future in the Olympic programme, beginning at the 2028 LA Olympics.
“During my amateur career, 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. “In my pro career, I became a multiple-time unified world champion, recognized for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to clean competition.
“I am dedicated to strengthening governance, ensuring financial transparency, developing technology to ensure impartial scoring, and expanding opportunities for athletes of all genders in every region of the world.”
The International Olympic Committee organized the boxing tournaments itself at the 2021 Tokyo Games and the 2024 Paris Olympics. Nonetheless, after last year’s Olympics were marred by disputes about gender eligibility, it said it needed a new partner in time for 2028.
In February, it officially recognized the new boxing federation, which then ran the 2025 world championships in the city of Liverpool. For that event, World Boxing introduced a mandatory sex screening test, to assess qualification of male and female athletes, a move that the IOC is also evaluating for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
