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Ex-middleweight world titleholder Gennady Golovkin is slated to be elected president of World Boxing and guide boxing as it heads toward the 2028 Olympic Games in LA.

The boxing legend, who won Olympic silver in Athens in 2004 and achieved the most world title defences in middleweight history, is the only presidential candidate approved by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for the upcoming vote. As a result, he will assume leadership of the boxing governing body, which was established as the authority for amateur Olympic boxing this year.

This position used to be held by the International Boxing Association, but it was expelled by the International Olympic Committee in 2023 following a string of judging, corruption and governance scandals.

In his manifesto, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose first term runs until 2027, vowed to restore trust in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic programme, beginning at the 2028 LA Olympics.

“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 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 improving oversight, guaranteeing open finances, developing technology to guarantee fair judging, and expanding opportunities 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 last year’s Olympics were overshadowed by disputes about gender eligibility, it declared a need for a new partner in time for 2028.

In February, it granted recognition to the new boxing federation, which then hosted the 2025 global tournament in the city of Liverpool. For the championships, the organization implemented compulsory gender verification, to assess qualification of boxers of both sexes, a step which the IOC is also considering for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.