He walked a time of 1 hour, 17 minutes, 16 seconds to break the record previously held by three-time world champion Jefferson Pérez of Ecuador.

[4] On 5 August 2008 Kanaykin and his training partners Sergey Morozov, Viktor Burayev, and Aleksey Voyevodin, who are all coached by Viktor Chegin, were banned from competing for two years by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) after testing positive for EPO.

He took the silver in men's 20 km race walk in 1:20:27 at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics in Daegu.

[8] On 25 March 2015 the IAAF filed an appeal with the Court of Arbitration in Lausanne, Switzerland, questioning the selective disqualification of the suspension periods of the six athletes involved including Kanaykin.

[9] On 24 March 2016 the court ruled and disqualified all of Kanaykin's results from 11 February 2011 to 17 December 2012.