12 Days of Triumph: Medal collection at track worlds launches another super season for Chernove

For this holiday season, we will be celebrating some of our favourite sport memories from throughout the year. Canada’s Para athletes achieved a lot in 2019, and we will be remembering one performance each day for 12 days.

Whether it was on the track or the road, Para cyclist Tristen Chernove always found the podium in 2019.

His best overall performance of the season occurred back in March at the world track cycling championships in Appledoorn, Netherlands. Chernove collected one gold, one silver and one bronze, just like he did at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio.

In Appledoorn, he was first in the scratch race, second in the individual pursuit and third in the kilo.
The Cranbrook, B.C. resident’s performances help Canada equal its best-ever showing at the track world championships.

Those results set the tone for another solid season on the road culminating with a bronze medal in the time trial at the world road championships also held in the Netherlands in Emmen.

In three World Cup events, including one in Baie-Comeau, Que., Chernove reached the podium in his six races with a gold, three silver and two bronze.

The 44-year-old Chernove was diagnosed in 2009 with Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease which affects his lower legs. He feels his performances are about more than winning medals and wearing leaders’ jerseys.

‘’After Rio I received more than 100 emails from around the world the disability community, many of them with CMT. My being able to have an impact, being able to show them different possibilities, was incredible,’’ he told Cycling Magazine this past May.

And that influence surely continues to grow with every passing success.