Russian heptathlete Tatyana Chernova, who became the 2008 Olympic bronze medallist aged only 20, is progressing with such tremendous speed that a group of national journalists has nicknamed her the ‘Wonder Girl from Russia’.

If we turn to genetics we may easily find some explanation for the meteoric rise of the 2006 World Junior champion. Chernova was born into a family of high class athletes. Notably her mother Ludmila Chernova won a medal at the Moscow Olympics as part of the Russian 4x400m Relay squad.

Unfortunately Ludmila now has no time at all to attend her daughters training sessions as she is occupies the important post of Minister of Sport for the Krasnodar region to which the future capital of 2014 Winter Olympics Games – Sochi – belongs. So she has a lot of things to do.

Therefore it is Tatyana’s father Sergei Chernov who is coaching her. Sergei is a professional coach who has already guided and continues to a look after many athletes, and for this reason too his time is also limited with his daughter and it’s impossible for him to accompany Tatyana to all the different tournaments and training camps to which she is invited to by the Russian team.

The role of travelling personal coach to Tatyana Chernova is taken by another well known specialist Vladimir Kudryivtzev. He is a trainer who has already been responsible for the career of multiple international medal winning long jumper Tatiana Kotova. And by the way Chernova considers Kotova, with whom she is practicing sometimes, to be an example for her.

Sergei Chernov is asked rather often, ‘Is it difficult to coach one’s own daughter?’

“Not at all,” - answers the father-coach. “She is diligent, always trying her best and for me it’s a real pleasure.”

Now let’s return back to Chernova’s childhood. For many years in Russia and in the former Soviet Union there have been many different track and field tournaments for school children and youngsters in general. The names of these competitions of course changed in accordance with the political climate – the “Pioneer’s Combined Event”, then added “Friendship” to its title and now has been re-baptised again… But it remains a four discipline combined event that includes sprints, jumps and the throwing of the tennis ball.

Many future stars of Russian athletics, like Irina Privalova for instance, started their way to glory through these sort if tournaments. And Chernova was no exception. As a youngster she won the final of one of these multi-disciplined tournaments and her talent was noticed. Trying different athletic events in order to get the required strength and a well balanced and a harmonised development has been the pillar of her future achievements.

Even now Chernova’s parents do not exclude the possibility that in the future she might concentrate on one or even a couple of individual disciplines just like many other successful multi-eventers of recent years such as Carolina Klüft, Eunice Barber or Naide Gomes. For instance in 2007 Chernova rather unexpectedly ran a 400m Hurdles race and without any special training and clocked a rather promising 56.14 sec (Zhukovskiy 30 Jun 2007).

But naturally at the moment Chernova and her coaches are seriously concentrated on the Combined Events in which she has made such spectacular progress. Her sports career is far from being long but her huge achievements are evident. She made her international debut in 2005 and that year won the Heptathlon at the World Youth Championships in Marrakech and the following year took gold in the World Juniors in Beijing.

In 2007, Chernova took part in the Arles meeting of the IAAF World Combined Events Challenge and came away with a victory in a huge personal best of 6768 points with only a savagely excess wind in the sprints preventing her from claiming a new World Junior record - 13.04 wind 6.1m/s; 1.82; 13.57; 23.59 wind 5.2m/s; 6.61/1.2; 53.43; 2:15.05.

She was later to compete with all the world’s established stars at the senior World Championships in Osaka, and while she had to stop competing after the first day because of injury the then 19-year-old had managed to participate for the first time at the senior elite championship level while still a junior - 13.71 wind 0.1; 1.80; 13.49; 25.88 wind -0.2.

“What was most important about Osaka? I’m sure the fact that I got there the rare opportunity to gain precious experience. I was watching closely the greats. I saw how they behaved themselves and the way in which they preferred to compete,” confessed Chernova.

“I learnt a lot in Osaka. Sport is interesting because of its exposure of human behaviour. And as far as my most preferable event is concerned I must admit it’s the Javelin. I don’t know the reasons why but it’s like that. It was most difficult at the very beginning with the Shot Put. But I’m growing and gaining strength so now it’s getting much easier and maybe the Shot Put will turn out to be my favourite.”

At last year’s Beijing Olympics, Chernova remarkably came away with the bronze medal. But such is her prodigious talent that despite her lack of experience some in Russia criticised her performance as she only managed to set a personal best in one discipline out of the seven. In the end Chernova only finished 142 points behind Olympic gold medallist Natalya Dobrynska and only lost the silver medal by 28 points to Hyleas Fountain. For many it seemed ridiculous that she “lost” 6 metres on her own personal best in her cherished javelin and yet set the new personal best in the last so much demanding 800m event – 2:06.50.

But now Chernova knows what it means to compete at the Olympics and that’s the experience needed if one day she is to become a global champion.

The athlete is diligent. Despite everyday training she graduated with high marks from the school and has quickly adapted to the physical demands of high level competitions.  She is still growing in the full sense of the word and now is 1.90m tall.

Chernova finished the Olympic year as the third highest scoring heptathlete in the world thanks to her personal best of 6619 points at the legendary Götzis meeting in Austria and took second place overall in the IAAF World Combined Events Challenge 2008.

Beijing will pay Chernova excellent service for the future London Olympics. For her dream is to become the Olympic champion. She’ll be 24 in 2012. And she says she cannot betray the fans that believe in and support her enthusiastically everywhere in the world.

But her most dedicated supporters are of course her parents.

“My mother is always phoning before and every tournament encouraging me,” comments Chernova emotionally. “She is sure that I’m the best. And that strong belief of hers helps me a lot.”

Nickolai Dolgopolov and Rostislav Orlov for the IAAF