He finished fifth at the 2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships but rebounded to peak with a 22.00 m personal best in July and taking his first Olympic medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the form of a bronze. This medal would later be retracted and awarded to Canadian rival Dylan Armstrong, for doping offences. He sank back down the rankings at the 2009 World Championships, finishing seventh, but he gained his second indoor silver at the 2010 World Indoors a few months later. He set a national indoor record of 21.81 m in Mogilev, Belarus, and continued his good form with a win at the 2010 European Cup Winter Throwing meeting. He followed that victory by winning the 2010 European Championships in Barcelona. All his results from August 2005 and onwards were later disqualified after re-tests showed he had doped at the 2005 World Athletics Championships, and in 2013 the IAAF banned him for life.