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Former world middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin will be elected president of World Boxing and lead the sport as it prepares for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.

Golovkin, who earned a silver medal in the 2004 Athens Games and achieved the most world title defences in the history of the middleweight division, is the only presidential candidate endorsed by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for Sunday’s election. As a result, he will assume leadership of the boxing governing body, which became the governing body for amateur Olympic boxing this year.

That role was previously occupied by the International Boxing Association, but it was banished by the IOC in 2023 following a string of controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.

In his platform, the boxing veteran, whose first term lasts through 2027, vowed to rebuild confidence 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 earned with pride a second-place finish at the 2004 Athens Olympics, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the principles of integrity and hard work that characterize the sport,” he stated. “As a professional, I won numerous world titles, recognized for my integrity, respect, and commitment to fair play.

“I am dedicated to improving oversight, ensuring financial transparency, advancing tech solutions 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. However, after last year’s Olympics were marred by disputes about gender eligibility, it declared a need for a fresh collaborator in time for 2028.

In February, it granted recognition to World Boxing, which then ran the 2025 world championships in Liverpool. For that event, World Boxing 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.