Former-middleweight world champion Gennady Golovkin will rely on his power of persuasion and not his feared fists to convince Kazakhstan's boxing federation that World Boxing is the best hope to keep the sport on the Olympic programme.
Recently appointed president of Kazakhstan’s National Olympic Committee, the political ring may be an unfamiliar one for Golovkin but with boxing's future as an Olympic sport on the ropes, he is viewing the fight as one of the most important of his career.
Golovkin told Reuters he would push the country's boxing federation to join the U.S. backed World Boxing which launched in April last year as an alternative to the International Boxing Association led by Russian Umar Kremlev.
Having failed to complete reforms on governance, finance and ethical issues the IBF was last June stripped of its recognition by the International Olympic Committee.
The boxing tournaments at the Paris Olympics this summer are being organised by the IOC but it has said it will not be doing so at the Los Angeles Games in 2028.
It has urged national federations to decide on a successor to the IBA by next year at the latest or risk seeing boxing miss out on the LA 2028 Olympics.
"We on our part are trying to convince them (Kazakhstan boxing federation) to join the World Boxing and we try to insist on that," Golovkin said, through an interpreter. "We are trying to do that and we will try to continue to push them to that decision.
"It's the federation of boxing of Kazakhstan that makes this decision and it is their freedom of choice. Their decision.
"I do not have any weight from a legal standpoint, I cannot influence the decision of the federation and they are going through their own process."
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