Golovkin Set to Be Elected World Boxing Leader, Will Guide Sport Toward 2028 Los Angeles Olympics

Ex-middleweight world titleholder Golovkin will be chosen as the head of World Boxing and guide boxing as it prepares for the 2028 Olympic Games in LA.

Golovkin, who won Olympic silver in Athens in 2004 and went on to make the most world title defences in middleweight history, is the sole nominee for president approved by the sport’s independent vetting panel for the upcoming vote. Consequently, he will take charge of World Boxing, which became the governing body for amateur Olympic boxing recently.

This position used to be held 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 manifesto, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose first term lasts through 2027, vowed to restore trust in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic lineup, starting with the 2028 LA Olympics.

“During my amateur career, I proudly won a second-place finish at the 2004 Athens Olympics, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the values of fair play and discipline that define Olympic boxing,” he wrote. “As a professional, I won numerous world titles, recognized for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to fair play.

“I am dedicated to strengthening governance, ensuring financial transparency, 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. Nonetheless, after last year’s Olympics were marred by rows over gender eligibility, it said it needed a fresh collaborator by 2028.

In the month of February, it officially recognized the new boxing federation, which then ran the 2025 world championships in Liverpool. For the championships, World Boxing introduced a mandatory sex screening test, to determine the eligibility of male and female athletes, a step which the Olympic committee is also considering for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.