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Former world middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin is slated to be chosen as the head of World Boxing and guide boxing as it prepares for the 2028 Olympic Games in LA.

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

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 controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.

In his platform, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose initial term lasts through 2027, promised to restore trust in the sport and ensure boxing’s future in the Olympic programme, starting with the Los Angeles 2028.

“During my amateur career, I earned with pride a second-place finish at the 2004 Athens Olympics, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the values of fair play and discipline that define Olympic boxing,” he wrote. “As a professional, I became a multiple-time unified world champion, known for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to fair play.

“I am committed to strengthening governance, ensuring financial transparency, advancing tech solutions to guarantee fair judging, and creating more chances for men and women in every region of the world.”

The IOC directly managed the boxing events at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the 2024 Paris Olympics. Nonetheless, after the recent Games were marred by disputes about gender eligibility, it said it needed a new partner in time for 2028.

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 IOC is also considering for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.