Gennady Golovkin Vows To ‘Do Everything To Keep Boxing In The Olympic Program’
Former middleweight world champion Gennady Golovkin has vowed to do everything in his power to “keep boxing in the Olympic program” as the sport faces an uncertain future.
Boxing has been a permanent fixture at the Summer Olympics since its introduction in 1904 – except for the Stockholm Games in 1912 due to Sweden’s ban on the sport – but faces a very real risk of dropping out of the program after Paris 2024 unless a new federation is approved by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The International Boxing Association (IBA) had been the sport’s federation until last year when the IOC stripped it of recognition due to unresolved governance, financial, and ethical issues. The IOC created a special task force to allow boxing at the Tokyo Games in 2021 and the same setup will govern the sport at Paris 2024.
However, the IOC has insisted it will not continue to support the sport into a third Games. It leaves amateur boxing a deadline of early next year to find a new federation otherwise it will not feature at Los Angeles 2028.
Boxing’s Olympic Exclusion ‘Unacceptable’ – Golovkin
Future Hall of Famer Golovkin was appointed president of Kazakhstan’s National Olympic Committee (NOC) in February, and he said he will use his position to do all he can to keep boxing in the Olympics.
“I was appointed the president, just of the National Olympic Committee recently, maybe just two or three months [ago]. And I’m getting familiarized with the situation and what I learned so far is unacceptable in my opinion,” Golovkin, 42, said.
“[It is] unacceptable for the boxers, unacceptable for [the] National Olympic Committees of other countries. And as a boxer, I will try to consult, I will try to help, assist, maybe influence to do everything to keep boxing in the Olympic program.”
The IBA – previously the Association Internationale de Boxe Amateur (AIBA) – has been plagued by corruption issues for decades. Former president Wu Ching-kuo, who held the position for 11 years between 2006 and 2017, was forced out after serious allegations of financial mismanagement and accounting irregularities were made against him.
Olympic Boxing Plagued By Problems
Wu was replaced by Umar Kremlev, whose close ties to Vladamir Putin raised concerns with the IOC. Several decisions made by Kremlev – including relocating the IBA’s headquarters from Lausanne, Switzerland to Russia, taking on Russian energy company Gazprom as a title sponsor, and banning Ukraine’s national federation – caused splinters within the federation.
It led to USA Boxing boycotting the 2023 World Championships and it was later joined by eight other national federations; Poland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Ireland, Czechia, Sweden and Canada.
A rival federation, World Boxing, was created and 28 national federations have since joined the new organization. It is hoped that World Boxing can put in place the necessary framework to be recognized as Olympic boxing’s new federation.
Golovkin, who won middleweight silver at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, believes there are available solutions that will save boxing’s Olympic future, citing a recent tournament he attended in Milan that implemented technology to eliminate dubious scoring, and therefore limit corruption accusations.
“I recently attended the tournament in Milan. It was a licensing qualification tournament. I liked the way it was carried out,” said Golovkin. “I saw a lot of innovations used to minimize the human factor. Such as artificial intelligence, score counting by computers, reviews. All these uses of new technology will make it cleaner. It helps to reduce corruption in the sport.”
