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Former world middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin will be chosen as the head of the global boxing federation 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 only presidential candidate approved by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for Sunday’s election. Consequently, he will assume leadership of the boxing governing body, which was established as the authority for Olympic-style amateur boxing recently.

This position was previously occupied by the former international boxing body, but it was expelled by the IOC in 2023 following a string of controversies involving judging, corruption, and management.

In his manifesto, the boxing veteran, whose first term lasts through 2027, vowed to restore trust in the sport and secure boxing’s long-term place in the Olympic lineup, starting with the 2028 LA Olympics.

“During my amateur career, I earned with pride a silver medal at the Olympic Games Athens 2004, symbolizing Kazakhstan but the values of fair play and discipline that define Olympic boxing,” he wrote. “In my pro career, I became a multiple-time unified world champion, known for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to clean competition.

“I am committed to strengthening governance, ensuring financial transparency, developing technology 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 last year’s Olympics were marred by rows over sex eligibility, it declared a need for a fresh collaborator in time for the 2028 Olympics.

In February, it officially recognized World Boxing, which then ran the 2025 world championships in the city of Liverpool. For that event, World Boxing implemented compulsory gender verification, to determine the eligibility of boxers of both sexes, a move that the Olympic committee is also evaluating for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.