Golovkin Poised to Become Chosen as World Boxing President, To Steer Sport Toward 2028 Los Angeles Olympics
Former world middleweight champion Golovkin is slated to be chosen as the head of World Boxing and lead the sport as it prepares for the 2028 Olympic Games in LA.
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 independent vetting panel for Sunday’s election. As a result, he will take charge of World Boxing, which was established as the authority for Olympic-style amateur boxing recently.
That role used to be held by the former international boxing body, but it was expelled by the International Olympic Committee in 2023 following a string of controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.
In his manifesto, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose first term runs until 2027, promised to restore trust in the sport and ensure boxing’s future in the Olympic lineup, beginning at the 2028 LA Olympics.
“As an amateur, I earned with pride a silver medal 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, known for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to clean competition.
“I am dedicated to improving oversight, guaranteeing open finances, developing technology to ensure impartial scoring, and creating more chances for men and women in every region of the world.”
The IOC organized the boxing tournaments itself at the 2021 Tokyo Games and the 2024 Paris Olympics. Nonetheless, after last year’s Olympics were overshadowed by rows over sex eligibility, it said it needed a new partner in time for 2028.
In February, it granted recognition to World Boxing, which then hosted the 2025 global tournament in Liverpool. For that event, the organization introduced a mandatory sex screening test, to determine the eligibility of boxers of both sexes, a move that the Olympic committee is also considering for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
