[2] The latter mark was achieved at the Soviet Athletics Championships, where he put an end to Leonid Shcherbakov long-running streak to win his first national title.

Despite clearing sixteen metres at the competition (which no athlete had done previously) he was outperformed by Poland's Józef Szmidt and settled for European silver.

[3] Ryakhovskiy had an unusual technique for the time, which relied less on lift in the jump stage and more on raw speed (he had a best of 10.6 seconds for the 100 metres).

[6] He followed this with two gold medals in 1959, winning at the World Festival of Youth and Students and then defeating Japanese Koji Sakurai and Hiroshi Shibata to claim the first ever men's triple jump title at the Universiade.

[7][8] Ryakhovskiy studied sports science up to doctorate level at Moscow State Technical University and later became a professor there.