After graduating from a secondary school he went toNovosibirsk, where he entered the Faculty ofPediatrics of the Institute of Medicine.[1] Markin started athletics only at age 19 in the athletics section by the institute, coached by Aleksandr Bukhasheyev.[1] He remained quite unknown until the MoscowOlympic Games.
On 27 April 1980, inSochi, Markin ran a new personal best in theone lap event of 46.96 seconds. In early July Markin ran 45.34 at theCentral Lenin Stadium. In the Olympic final on July 30, Markin was only fifth at the halfway mark and as the final straight opened he was still three metres behind the leaderFrank Schaffer ofEast Germany. But with a very strong finish Markin won with aEuropean record and world season best 44.60 (still the Russian national record over 400 m). Markin captured his secondgold in the 4 × 400 mrelay when, as an anchor, he outran the winner of the400 metre hurdles, East GermanVolker Beck.
After a break from sports to complete his studies inmedicine, Markin returned at theEuropean Championships in 1982, where he won two bronze medals (400 m and 4 × 400 m relay). At the inauguralWorld Championships inHelsinki Markin, the only Soviet competing in the individual 400 metres (as the rest were concentrating on the relay), was knocked out of the final in an extremely closephoto finish by eventual bronze medalistSunder Nix of the United States. However, he finished on a high note as in the last event of the Championships, the4 × 400 m relay, the Soviets won an unexpected gold.West Germany already lost their winning chances on the first leg asErwin Skamrahl (who had broken Markin's European record just three weeks earlier) gave up more than ten meters toSergey Lovachov; the other main favorites, United States, hung with the Soviets for two and a half legs untilWillie Smith tumbled and fell, leaving Markin an easy job to anchor home a USSR victory.
Markin decided to retire after hearing the Soviet decision to boycott the1984 Summer Olympics.
Soviet Union
