[4] He won his first major international medal at the 1983 Summer Universiade, taking the bronze behind America's Mike Carter and Zlatan Saračević of Yugoslavia.

[5] At age twenty-two, he made his global senior debut for the Soviet Union at the 1983 World Championships in Athletics, though he failed to get past the qualifying round.

[7] His throw was the second best ever by a Soviet athlete at that point, behind only the mark of 22.09 m (72 ft 5+1⁄2 in) set by Sergey Kasnauskas the previous year.

[8] He remained in good form at the 1985 IAAF World Cup, taking the silver medal after Ulf Timmermann.

He was the silver medallist at the 1986 European Athletics Indoor Championships behind Swiss champion Werner Günthör.

[11] The Goodwill Games in Moscow brought him the second gold medal of his career, beating national rival Sergey Gavryushin and American John Brenner.

[12] He comfortably qualified at the 1986 European Athletics Championships, but picked up an injury and was unable to start the final, which was won by Günthör.

[9] He won a third straight national title in 1987 and also claimed his first win at the Soviet Indoor Athletics Championships.

He returned in 1990 and ranked sixth in the world through his season's best of 21.01 m (68 ft 11 in) and narrowly missed out on a medal at the 1990 European Athletics Championships, taking fourth place after Norway's Georg Andersen (banned for doping a year later).