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Former world middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin is slated to be chosen as the head of World Boxing and lead the sport as it heads toward the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.

Golovkin, who won Olympic silver in the 2004 Athens Games and achieved the highest number of title defenses in the history of the middleweight division, is the sole nominee for president endorsed by the sport’s independent vetting panel for Sunday’s election. As a result, he will assume leadership of the boxing governing body, which became the governing body for Olympic-style amateur boxing recently.

This position was previously occupied by the International Boxing Association, but it was expelled by the International Olympic Committee in 2023 following a series of judging, corruption and governance scandals.

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

“As an amateur, I earned with pride a second-place finish at the Olympic Games Athens 2004, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the principles of integrity and hard work that characterize the sport,” he wrote. “In my pro career, I became a multiple-time unified world champion, recognized 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 Paris 2024 Games. Nonetheless, after last year’s Olympics were marred by rows over gender eligibility, it declared a need for a new partner in time for the 2028 Olympics.

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, World Boxing introduced a mandatory sex screening test, to determine the eligibility of male and female athletes, a move that the IOC is also evaluating for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.