The sole international medal of his career came at the 1981 European Athletics Junior Championships, where he threw to take the bronze medal behind Christoph Sahner and Sergey Dorozhon. His greatest achievement came in the 1987 season when he threw a career best of in Chelyabinsk. This ranked him third in the world that year behind fellow Soviets Sergey Litvinov and Igor Astapkovich – both of whom were Olympic medallists. This proved to be a brief peak for Korovin as he did not break eighty metres again and his next highest ranking was twelfth in the 1989 season.