After being appointed as the chair of a new Olympic Commission by World Boxing in September, Gennadiy Golovkin and his committee have accepted applications for four new members. The announcement came after World Boxing’s second annual Congress was held in Pueblo, Colorado earlier this month.

The four new countries added are from the Asian subcontinent. This news is rather important as World Boxing added seven new members just a week ago to cross the mark of 50 member nations. According to the association, the new additions were expected and inevitable because of the growing population of the sport in those regions. So, let’s take a look at the newly added countries and what they bring to the table.

A proud moment for Gennady Golovkin

It must be a proud moment for Golovkin as one of the four new additions, including his own country Kazakhstan, a recent powerhouse in world boxing. Golovkin is a former two-time middleweight champion and won a silver medal for his country in the 2004 Olympics. So, seeing his country finally join World Boxing under his leadership must be a proud moment for him.

The other three countries to become the latest signatories to the newly formed World Boxing are Uzbekistan, Guatemala, and Laos. Uzbekistan has also seen a sudden rise in the boxing world and was the table topper in the Paris Olympics in 2024. There were five gold medalists from Uzbekistan in the recent summer games Hasanboy Dusmatov(51kg), Abdumalik Khalokov(57kg), Asadkhuja Muydinkhujaev(71kg), Lazizbek Mullojonov(92kg), and Bakhodir Jalolov successfully defending his super heavyweight gold medal.

With these new additions, the Asian sub-continent now has 13 countries in the World Boxing mix. Other countries are Mongolia, Thailand, Philippines, India, Japan, Bhutan, Chinese Taipei, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and Singapore.

The President of World Boxing, Boris van der Vorst, was in a cheerful mood after the announcement. He made his intentions and desire with these new inclusions clear and stated how glad he was that more and more countries were ready to join the new federation in an effort to keep Olympic boxing alive.

A step towards keeping boxers’ Olympic dreams alive

After the conference, Boris van der Vorst displayed his delighted mood over the fact that the World Boxing is now 55 members strong. He was further content with how fast the association was expanding. “Only last week we announced seven new members to take World Boxing past the milestone of 50 countries. To be able to announce four more members, including two major powers in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, so soon after this, is a sign of the growing momentum shift in international boxing,” stated Vorst.

World Boxing was launched in 2023 and since then has been trying to sustain boxing in the Olympic while also promoting transparency in the sport. The U19 World Boxing Championships in Colorado earlier this month paid dividends and following its conclusion, these four new countries were given the membership.

According to Vorst, World Boxing will continue to grow and will try and add more members in the future. He thinks that the national federations are realizing the importance of membership and how it will help their boxers. “It is clear that there has been a change in impetus and that more National Federations want to join World Boxing as they recognise it is the only way to keep the Olympic dreams of their boxers alive,” stated the WB president.

The Elite World Boxing Championships for men and women in September 2025 in Liverpool, England will be World Boxing’s second global event and they will try to recruit more members nations following that. Let’s hope they succeed in doing that.

What do you think about the addition of these new members? Do you think that World Boxing will be successful in saving boxing from vanishing from the Olympics? Let us know your thoughts down below.