Retirement suits Paralympic medalist from qathet region

Para-cyclist Tristen Chernove, who was born and raised in the qathet region and went on to win world championships and Paralympic medals, has retired from elite competition.

A 13-time world champion, and four-time Paralympic medalist, Chernove is afflicted with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a degenerative neurological disorder that affects the nervous system, that has classified him as a Paralympian.

Chernove won gold, silver and bronze medals in para-cycling in the 2016 Rio games and won silver at the recently concluded Tokyo games. He has twice been honoured as Canadian cyclist of the year.

Chernove said he is retiring from elite-level international paracycling, but he’s an athlete for life.

“I am still going to be racing and competing, I’m sure, until I’m competing in the senior games,” said Chernove. “I’m not going to ever stop. What I have put an end to is the international para-cycling side of things.”

Cycling is a lifestyle for Chernove, but now he will be doing it more as a passion and hobby without so many of the pressures of competing at the highest level internationally.

“If a day works out where I could train all day without impacting others, I’ll do it, but if it’s a day where my daughters need help with their math, or there are other family commitments, I can do that without any kind of guilt,” he said. “At certain times I’ll do a lot of competing but without the level of commitment where I have to sacrifice everything else.”

Chernove said his main focus competitively in future will be road and gravel racing. He said he rode the BC Bike Race for the first time in the Okanagan several weeks ago.

“That was amazing,” he added. “It was a fun race and I ended up second on one of the days and third on one of the others. I finished fourth. I could see doing a lot more of that kind of stuff.”

He will also continue racing with a team out of Vancouver and he also enjoys track racing, so he’ll race at the Burnaby velodrome on occasion.

“As long as it has two wheels, I’m interested,” said Chernove.

Difficult decision

In the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, Chernove was scheduled to ride in several events. In his first race, the pursuit, he placed second, winning a silver medal. He said the decision to not carry on with the rest of the races was a hard one, and it still weighs on him a little bit in some ways, but he added that he didn’t think he had any other choice that he could have ethically made at the time.

“I was put in a position where I felt it was the only option that I could live with,” said Chernove. “Because I have a degenerative disease, the classifiers want to check my classifications from time to time, and knowing that my condition might be getting worse, I might get put into a category of more disability. I’ve been through this several times before and it’s always been very straightforward.

“Although I knew I had to go do this again, I really did not think there was any likelihood of it changing. Through my whole cycling career, it never has.”

Chernove said after the pursuit race, where he was awarded the silver medal, it was confirmed that he would be put in a category of more disability than he had competed in during his whole career.

“The truth is, even though the condition may be worsening, I am actually faster than I’ve ever been,” said Chernove.

He said the pursuit race in which he competed was a personal best for him, and that wasn’t even the event he was targeting. He said even if he hadn’t been reclassified, he was in a very good position to defend his gold medal in the time trial and likely to win in the road race.

“I was not comfortable being reclassified, knowing that I’m still so competitive in the less-impaired category,” said Chernove. “I made an appeal to the classifiers and the outcome of that was they could not take performance into consideration. They can only consider what the medical reports and conditions say, which, for me, is extremely problematic. I don’t think that feeds into what is important to athletes.

“I knew that in the new category, there would be a lot of people who spent their whole careers driving towards this moment of being at the games. It’s pretty predictable when you get to the games who are the primary medal contenders, and all of a sudden, they would put me in that category and throw everyone’s dreams out the window.”

Chernove said there was not a whole lot of added value for him achieving what has already been achieved.

“I’ve had more than my fair share of success and I wasn’t comfortable taking that away from other people,” he added. “I would have been much happier if they had put me the other way. Even with people without any impairments, I’m very competitive.

“I took that stand and from what I understand, it might have been the first time a reclassification has had that kind of a reaction from an athlete to withdraw. I’m hoping that helps us rethink the entire system.”

Future focus

Chernove said he’s a very driven person, but even within his realm, once he’d won world championships 13 times, it’s impossible to keep the same level of drive.

“At the end of the day, socially, what do we value about sport?” asked Chernove. “Is it really about nations having dominant athletes or is it more about more people being the best they can be. Having a points system that moves and accelerates athletes along a path is worth looking at.”

In terms of leaving his elite competitive career behind him, Chernove said he is comfortable with his decision and he’s looking forward to being the most compassionate person he can be rather than a fierce competitor.

“I’m ready for that; at the same time, I’m still not done finding out what I’m capable of and I still know I’m getting better,” he added. “I’m very comfortable with my decision as long as I can see some outcomes for what I’m going to be focusing on now, which is trying to help the up-and-coming athletes have a path that’s more likely to make them happier humans who have their wellness more centred on the focus of what they are doing.

“If I can, over the next five years, get more comfortable that the sports system is putting athlete wellness above everything else, I’ll know I made the change at the right time.”