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Ex-middleweight world titleholder Gennady Golovkin is slated to be elected president of the global boxing federation and guide boxing as it prepares for the 2028 Olympic Games in LA.

The boxing legend, who won Olympic silver in Athens in 2004 and achieved the highest number of title defenses in the history of the middleweight division, is the only presidential candidate endorsed by the sport’s independent vetting panel for Sunday’s election. As a result, he will take charge of the boxing governing body, which became the governing body for amateur Olympic boxing recently.

This position was previously occupied by the International Boxing Association, but it was banished by the International Olympic Committee in 2023 following a series of controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.

In his platform, the boxing veteran, whose initial term runs until 2027, vowed to rebuild confidence in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic lineup, starting with the 2028 LA Olympics.

“As an amateur, I earned with pride a second-place finish at the Olympic Games Athens 2004, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the values of fair play and discipline that define Olympic boxing,” he wrote. “As a professional, I won numerous world titles, known for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to clean competition.

“I am dedicated to strengthening governance, guaranteeing open finances, 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 organized the boxing tournaments itself at the 2021 Tokyo Games and the Paris 2024 Games. Nonetheless, after the recent Games were overshadowed by rows over gender eligibility, it declared a need for a fresh collaborator by the 2028 Olympics.

In the month of February, it officially recognized the new boxing federation, which then ran the 2025 world championships in Liverpool. For the championships, World Boxing implemented compulsory gender verification, to assess qualification of male and female athletes, a move that the Olympic committee is also evaluating for LA 2028.