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Former world middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin is slated to be elected president of the global boxing federation and lead the sport as it prepares for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.

Golovkin, who won Olympic silver in Athens in 2004 and went on to make the highest number of title defenses 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 take charge of the boxing governing body, 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 International Olympic Committee in the year 2023 following a string of controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.

In his manifesto, the boxing veteran, whose first term runs until 2027, vowed to rebuild confidence in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic lineup, beginning at the 2028 LA Olympics.

“As an amateur, I proudly won a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, representing not only Kazakhstan but the values of fair play and discipline that characterize the sport,” he wrote. “In my pro career, I won numerous world titles, recognized for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to clean competition.

“I am committed to improving oversight, guaranteeing open finances, developing technology to guarantee fair judging, and creating more chances for men and women in all corners of the globe.”

The International Olympic Committee directly managed the boxing events at the 2021 Tokyo Games and the 2024 Paris Olympics. However, after last year’s Olympics were overshadowed by rows over gender eligibility, it said it needed a fresh collaborator in time for the 2028 Olympics.

In the month of February, it officially recognized World Boxing, which then hosted the 2025 global tournament in Liverpool. For the championships, World Boxing introduced a mandatory sex screening test, to assess qualification of male and female athletes, a move that the Olympic committee is also evaluating for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.