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She originally finished fourth, but following the disqualification of Lyudmyla Blonska for doping, she was upgraded to the bronze medal (her first major senior medal).
She originally finished fourth, but following the disqualification of Lyudmyla Blonska for doping, she was upgraded to the bronze medal (her first major senior medal).
Chernova also came third in the pentathlon at the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships. Standing 1.89 m tall (6 ft 25 in), she is an all-round strong heptathlete performer, with particular strengths in the javelin throw, long jump and 800 metres events. In 2007 she scored a total of 6768 points – the highest score ever reached by a junior, although it is classed as wind-assisted for record purposes.
On her senior global debut at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics she failed to finish the competition.
She rebounded the following year at the 2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships, where she came seventh in the women"s pentathlon. She failed to build upon this in 2009 and ended the year with a season"s best of 6386 points, having come eighth at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics.
Chernova represented Russia at the 2010 European Athletics Championships and finished fourth in the heptathlon with 6512 points. Chernova began the 2011 season with a significant personal best of 6773 points at the TNT-Fortuna Meeting.
This was a meeting record and represented an improvement of more than 150 points over her previous best.
She had run a personal best in the 100 metres hurdles (1332 seconds), but her consistency over all seven events proved to be the reason for the definitive improvement. At the championships in Daegu, she equalled her bests in the 200 metres and the 100 m hurdles, and set an outright best in the shot put. On the final day, a strong performance in the javelin throw (5295 m) saw Chernova overhaul and establish a significant lead over second placed Ennis.
After retesting of samples from the 2009 IAAF World Championships Chernova was found to have been doping.
Her results from 15 August 2009 to 14 August 2011 was annulled and she was suspended for two years from 22 July 2013. On March 25, 2015, the IAAF filed an appeal with the Court of Arbitration in Lausanne, Switzerland, questioning the selective disqualification of the suspension periods of six other athletes disqualified about the same time.