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Former world middleweight champion Golovkin is slated to be elected president of the global boxing federation and lead the sport as it heads toward the 2028 Olympic Games in LA.

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 only presidential candidate endorsed by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for the upcoming vote. Consequently, he will take charge of World Boxing, which was established as the authority for amateur Olympic boxing recently.

This position used to be held by the former international boxing body, but it was banished 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 lasts through 2027, promised to restore trust in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic programme, starting with the Los Angeles 2028.

“During my amateur career, I proudly won a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the principles of integrity and hard work that define Olympic boxing,” he stated. “In my pro career, I became a multiple-time unified world champion, recognized for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to fair play.

“I am dedicated to strengthening governance, guaranteeing open finances, developing technology to guarantee fair judging, and creating more chances for men and women in every region of the world.”

The International Olympic Committee organized the boxing tournaments itself at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the 2024 Paris Olympics. However, after the recent Games were overshadowed by disputes about gender eligibility, it said it needed a fresh collaborator in time for 2028.

In the month of February, it granted recognition to the new boxing federation, which then ran the 2025 world championships in Liverpool. For that event, the organization implemented compulsory gender verification, to assess qualification of male and female athletes, a step which the Olympic committee is also considering for LA 2028.