ALEX IS ON FIRE ‘ HARD WORK PAYS OFF’
CANADIAN CROSS- COUNTRY SKIER FINISHES THIRD OVERALL IN WORLD CUP STANDINGS
Alex Harvey can’t count the number of kilometres he has logged on his personal odometer over 12 years on the national cross-country ski team.
So while he might seem like an overnight success story, Harvey credits the innumerable training hours of skiing, cycling and running — with no fans on the sidelines cheering him on — for creating the two most magical weeks of his career.
“Hard work pays off,” Harvey told Postmedia Sunday after claiming silver in the last World Cup race of the season in his home province of Quebec. “I’m just having so much fun.” Fun indeed. First, Harvey won the prestigious 50km title at the world championships in Lahti, Finland. Then he flew across the Atlantic Ocean for the World Cup sprint final on the Plains of Abraham.
In front of thousands of adoring subjects, Harvey turned the battlefield into his personal playground in a sport that historically belongs to Norway, Sweden and Finland.
“Just imagine if someone came to Canada from Japan and ended up being the best hockey player,” said Dominick Gauthier, an Olympic analyst for Radio- Canada. “Imagine how stunned and surprised and shocked we all would be.
“Well, Alex Harvey is that to the Scandinavians. It’s insane.”
The 28- year- old from nearby Saint- Ferreol- les- Neiges, Que., won gold Friday in the sprint. He followed that up with a fourthplace finish in Saturday’s 15km mass start.
On Sunday, Harvey just missed out on gold by the toe of his ski boot in a photo finish with Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo in the 15km freestyle men’s pursuit race.
“Klaebo is the best sprinter in the world, and in the end, he proved that,” Harvey said. “I lunged with everything I had so there is nothing to be ashamed of.”
There’s also nothing to be ashamed of given Harvey started the race in third position, 23 seconds back of Klaebo.
In spite of the deficit, Harvey took control of the race from the start, making up 10 seconds in his first trip around the 3.75km loop.
By the five- kilometre mark, Harvey and Norway’s Niklas Dyrhaug tracked down Klaebo and turned it into a three- man race until the finish with the rest of the world more than 40 seconds behind.
One of the favourites, Norway’s Finn Haagen Krogh, couldn’t keep up with the pace and faded away.
“Any time you can make one of the best skiers in the world blow up is a great feeling,” Harvey said. “As soon as I saw Finn Haagen Krogh blew up, I knew I was going to be on the podium.
“It was really fun and exciting because it was all a matter of trying to win. That is the fist time midway through a race I knew the worst I could do is land on the podium and it was great to know it was in the bank.”
Harvey is widely known on the World Cup circuit as “the Prince of Quebec.” For three days this weekend, he was the king.
“I’m 28, and that’s when you hit your best years in cross- country skiing,” he said. “All those years of training are starting to pay off. Twenty- eight in an endurance sport is when you start hitting the prime time.”
Harvey finishes the season ranked third overall in the World Cup standings. He heads into an Olympic year as a multiple-medal contender for the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.
“I’m really motivated,” he said. “But I’m really confident at the same time.”
Harvey is the only Canadian to win an individual title at the world championships. He is also the most decorated Canadian cross-country skier in history with Sunday’s silver marking his 24th World Cup podium.
“Alex comes from small- town Quebec, and he’s fighting against all these Norwegians,” Gauthier said. “It’s just mind-blowing.”
Also mind- blowing: crowd estimates of more than 50,000 fans over three days in a country where cross- country skiing is seen as more of a weekend pursuit than serious spectator sport.
“We are not just a hockey nation,” Gauthier said. “I was so proud I could cry.”
IT WAS GREAT TO KNOW IT WAS IN THE BANK.