He was originally the 2011 World Champion in the 50 kilometres race walk before losing his medal for doping infringements. He originally finished in 6th place in the same race in the 2012 Olympics before that result, too, was expunged. He was advanced to 5th place when teammate Igor Yerokhin was disqualified and banned for life following a second finding of irregularities in his biological passport, an indicator of performance-enhancing drugs.