Iurii Cheban


Yuriy Volodymyrovych Cheban is a retired Ukrainian sprint canoeist. He is the 2012 and 2016 Olympic champion in C-1 200 metres.

Career

In 2003, despite being a year younger than many of his rivals, he was a world junior silver medallist at Komatsu, Japan in the Canadian canoe C-1 1000 m and also finished fourth in the C-1 500 m event. Having won the 2004 European Junior Championships at both the C-1 500 m and C-1 1000 m in Poznań, Poland, Cheban was selected to represent Ukraine in both C-1 events at the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Competing against much more experienced canoeists, he placed sixth in his initial heat of the C-1 500 m with a time of 2:00.238, qualifying for the semifinals. In the semifinal, he again placed sixth with a time of 1:53.385, and did not advance to the finals.
In C-1 1000 m, Cheban finished sixth in his heat with a time of 4:00.637. He was disqualified in the semifinal.
In 2005, Cheban and partner Petro Kruh won the European under-23 C-2 1000 m title in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. At the 2005 ICF [Canoe Sprint World Championships|senior World Championships] in Zagreb, Croatia they were the youngest of the C-2 1000 m finalists, placing ninth.
In 2006 Cheban returned to the individual C-1 event and it proved to be his most successful season yet. In July he took the C-1 500 m bronze medal at the 2006 European Championships in Račice, Czech Republic – his first senior medal. The following month he went one better, winning the silver medal at the World Championships in Szeged. Cheban would win gold in the C-1 200 m event at the 2007 championships in Duisburg.
He won a bronze medal in the Canoeing at the [2008 Summer Olympics – Men's C-1 500 metres|C1 500m] event at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. He is a member of the Pivdenne, [Odesa Oblast|Pivdenne] club.
At the 2010 championships, Cheban won two medals with a silver in the C-1 4 × 200 m and a bronze in the C-1 200 m.
While at the 2012 Olympics in London, he won the C-1 200m event, beating his opponent Ivan Shtyl' from Russia. He succeeded in defending his title four years later at the 2016 Olympics, Canoeing at the [2016 Summer Olympics – Men's C-1 200 metres|defeating] his former teammate, Valentin Demyanenko, who competed for Azerbaijan.