Talakhadze represented Georgia at the 2015 World Weightlifting Championships, and originally finished second with a total of 454 kg.

[6] In December 2015, Aleksey Lovchev (the original gold medalist and world record holder in the clean & jerk and total) failed a drug test[7] for Ipamorelin.

In his first competition after winning the gold medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics, he set a new world record in the snatch at the 2017 European Weightlifting Championships with 217 kg, and in the process broke the all-time highest snatch[14] of 216 kg set by Antonio Krastev in 1987, and matched by Behdad Salimi at the 2016 Olympics.

[16] In the competition he won all three gold medals, set 2 world records and had a 23 kg lead over the silver medalist Saeid Alihosseini.

The 2018 World Weightlifting Championships were the first international competition with new weight classes and Talakhadze competed in the +109 kg category.

In the snatch portion of the competition he opened with 207 kg which placed him in the gold medal position with Gor Minasyan being the only competitor with another attempt.

[17][18] In 2019, he competed in the 2019 European Weightlifting Championships which was held in Batumi in his home country of Georgia.

[19] Apart from being the heavy favorite to win the +109 kg category, there were expectations that Talakhadze would increase upon his current world records.

In 2016, due to his world record setting performance at the 2016 Summer Olympics Talakhadze was awarded the President's Order of Excellence by Giorgi Margvelashvili.

[31] In 2013, Talakhadze was banned from competition for 2 years after testing positive for the performance enhancing drug stanozolol.