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Ex-middleweight world titleholder Gennady Golovkin is slated to be elected president of World Boxing and lead the sport as it prepares for the 2028 Olympic Games in LA.

Golovkin, who earned a silver medal in the 2004 Athens Games and went on to make 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 the upcoming vote. As a result, he will assume leadership of World Boxing, which became the governing body for Olympic-style amateur boxing recently.

That role was previously occupied by the former international boxing body, but it was banished by the IOC in the year 2023 following a series of controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.

In his manifesto, the boxing veteran, whose first term lasts through 2027, vowed to rebuild confidence in the sport and ensure boxing’s future in the Olympic programme, beginning at the Los Angeles 2028.

“During my amateur career, I proudly won a silver medal at the Olympic Games Athens 2004, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the principles of integrity and hard work that define Olympic boxing,” he wrote. “As a professional, 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, advancing tech solutions to ensure impartial scoring, and expanding opportunities for men and women in every region of the world.”

The IOC directly managed the boxing events at the 2021 Tokyo Games and the 2024 Paris Olympics. Nonetheless, after last year’s Olympics were overshadowed by rows over sex eligibility, it declared a need for a fresh collaborator in time for 2028.

In February, it officially recognized World Boxing, which then ran the 2025 world championships in Liverpool. For the championships, the organization implemented compulsory gender verification, to determine the eligibility of boxers of both sexes, a move that the IOC is also considering for LA 2028.