No podium, no shame for Alex Harvey

P Y E O N G C H A N G • A heavyweight boxer named David Defiagbon was guaranteed an Olympic silver medal years ago for essentially being punched below the waist and dropping quickly to his knees.

He crumpled to the canvas in Atlanta and for the last 22 years Defiagbon has been able to tell anyone who would listen that he was an Olympic medal winner.

There are no low blows in cross country skiing and there are no free rides. There are no short track speed skating crashes. But there is pain, lots of pain.

Absolutely nothing comes easily in this sport and that’s hard for Canadians to completely comprehend, especially since we’ve become medal crazy, since the winter domination has taken place ever since our attitudes towards sport changed with the national feeding frenzy of the Vancouver Olympics of 2010.

Winning became expected. Owning the podium was more than a slogan. Just not in men’s cross country skiing, where Canada has never won a medal of any colour.

And it’s entirely possible that Alex Harvey, greatest male cross country skier in Canadian history, hero of Quebec, World Cup champion, soon to be lawyer, greater than his father, Pierre, mother is the team doctor, will never win an Olympic medal. It is entirely possible he will leave these Winter Games, his last, finishing eighth and seventh and who knows where he will end up in the 50 kilometre race — but he says he will be OK leaving without any hardware, without ever picking up the prize we tend to idolize.

He says that even if he doesn’t believe it because he has to say that to stay in the game.

Harvey finished seventh Friday in the 15-kilometre freestyle event and said he was happy. His coach, Louis Bouchard, called it a good performance. “We did everything we could,” said Harvey. “That was a good race.”

A seventh place finish in hockey would be considered something of a disgrace here. If seventh is where Patrick Chan ends up in figure skating, that won’t or shouldn’t be applauded. If any of the curling teams end up seventh, that would be rather disastrous, too.

For Alex Harvey, this may be as good as it gets. And that’s nothing to apologize for. It’s the reality of the game he plays.

“Alex averages three podiums per year,” said Bouchard, talking about the World Cup circuit “That’s three in 40 races.”

That’s one podium finish every 13-plus events. That’s his cross country lottery ticket of sorts. The Norwegians, who finished second, fourth, and sixth, three ahead of Harvey, spent more than $1 million just to rent an entire hotel here to house and feed its nordic athletes. Their budget for wax alone is more than the entire Canadian team spends in a year.

Harvey is skiing up hill and is in the discussion, just not where he wants to be.

“It needs to be the right day, the right timing,” said Bouchard. “Alex was at some point third, in second position, third place, fourth, so it was really close.” He seemed a touch wide-eyed about the day but maybe that’s the only way to appoach an event of this magnitude. Harvey finished 12 and a half seconds off the podium, 35 and a half seconds behind gold medal winner Dario Cologna of Switzerland. That’s basically two seconds a kilometre difference. “It’s that close,” said Harvey.

“The goal is to make a podium, for sure. But today, I really skied 100 per cent. I did not go too slowly or too fast. I just lacked a little punch and spark in the last lap,” Harvey said in French.

How do you make up that miniscule portion of time?

“It’s 100 per cent physical,” said Harvey. “I need to have a special day.” And then he tried to explain the difference between having a great day and a good day. Maybe it’s the difference between shooting 70 or 69 on a golf course.

For any Canadian, a Top 10 finish is the sporting equivalent of a podium finish in cross country skiing. Only you get nothing to put around your neck.

This is not a podium we may ever own. That doesn’t diminish the accomplishment. Alex Harvey is world class.