At the 2004 World Single Distance Speed Skating Championships in Seoul he achieved the silver medal at this distance, only allowing Jeremy Wotherspoon to be faster. He became Russian Sprint Champion three times in a row, and was, because of his recently shown progress, a favourite to win an Olympic medal in the 500 metres distance at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. But in the summer of 2005, when his trainer Sergey Klevchenya organised a football-game, Lobkov got injured. His preparation for the Olympics was therefore too short. In his favourite 500 metres distance Lobkov ranked himself in fourteenth place.