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Former world middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin will be chosen as the head of the global boxing federation and guide boxing as it prepares for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.

The boxing legend, who won Olympic silver in Athens in 2004 and went on to make the most world title defences in middleweight history, is the only presidential candidate endorsed by the sport’s independent vetting panel for the upcoming vote. As a result, he will assume leadership of the boxing governing body, which became the governing body for Olympic-style amateur boxing recently.

That role used to be held by the International Boxing Association, but it was expelled by the International Olympic Committee in 2023 following a series of controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.

In his platform, the boxing veteran, whose first term runs until 2027, vowed to restore trust in the sport and ensure boxing’s future in the Olympic programme, starting with the 2028 LA Olympics.

“As an amateur, I proudly won a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, representing not only Kazakhstan but the principles of integrity and hard work that characterize the sport,” he wrote. “As a professional, I became a multiple-time unified world champion, recognized for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to clean competition.

“I am committed to strengthening governance, ensuring financial transparency, advancing tech solutions to ensure impartial scoring, and creating more chances for athletes of all genders in every region of the world.”

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

In February, it granted recognition to the new boxing federation, which then hosted the 2025 global tournament in Liverpool. For that event, World Boxing introduced a mandatory sex screening test, to assess qualification of boxers of both sexes, a move that the IOC is also considering for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.