Since then he has continued his rapid progress. In 2005 he became the first of the junior canoe champions from Komatsu to win a senior world championship title. At the age of just twenty, he partnered Yevgeny Ignatov to victory in the C-2 200 m final at the world championship in Zagreb, Croatia. They edged out Christian Gille and Tomasz Wylenzek by just 0.024 secs, thereby preventing a clean sweep by the German duo.