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Former world middleweight champion 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 earned a silver medal in the 2004 Athens Games and went on to make the most world title defences in middleweight history, is the only presidential candidate endorsed by the sport’s autonomous selection committee for Sunday’s election. Consequently, he will take charge of the boxing governing body, which became the governing body for Olympic-style amateur boxing this year.

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

In his manifesto, the 43-year-old Golovkin, whose initial term lasts through 2027, promised to rebuild confidence 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 proudly won a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, 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, recognized for my honesty, sportsmanship, and dedication to clean competition.

“I am committed to improving oversight, ensuring financial transparency, advancing tech solutions to ensure impartial scoring, and creating more chances for men and women in every region of the world.”

The International Olympic Committee organized the boxing tournaments itself at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and the Paris 2024 Games. Nonetheless, after last year’s Olympics were marred by disputes about gender eligibility, it declared a need for a new partner in time for the 2028 Olympics.

In February, it granted recognition to World Boxing, which then ran the 2025 world championships in the city of Liverpool. For that event, the organization implemented compulsory gender verification, to assess qualification of male and female athletes, a move that the Olympic committee is also evaluating for LA 2028.