Kershaw hangs up skis after 15 years
Sudbury athlete won 14 World Cup medals, reached No. 2 overall
CANMORE, ALTA. — Cross-country skier Devon Kershaw has retired after producing Canadian breakthroughs in the sport.
Kershaw, from Sudbury, Ont., and Alex Harvey became the first Canadian men to win world championship gold in 2011 when they finished first in the team pursuit in Oslo, Norway.
In a sport traditionally dominated by Scandinavian men, Kershaw won a career 14 World Cup medals, including three gold, and ranked No. 2 in the overall standings in 2012.
“It has been 15 great years chasing my dreams in a sport that I absolutely love, but I have a wife and a 15-month-old daughter now, and it is just getting harder and harder to be away,” Kershaw said Wednesday in a statement from Cross Country Canada.
The 35-year-old lives in Norway with his wife, former skier Kristin Stoermer Steira, and daughter Asta. Kershaw’s World Cup bronze in 2006 — just the second time in history a Canadian man had stood on the podium — surprised everyone.
“Nobody believed it was possible for Canadian men to be contenders on the World Cup,” he said. “The world didn’t believe it, and the Canadian crosscountry ski community by and large didn’t believe it.”
Kershaw blazed a trail for Harvey, a skier from Saint-Ferreol-les-Neiges, Que., who won a world title in the men’s 50k in 2017.
“Devon was like a big brother for me,” Harvey said. “He showed me the path of excellence in our sport from the day I joined the World Cup team.”
Kershaw raced in his fourth Winter Olympics in February. His goal was to get a Canadian man on the Olympic podium and make history, whether it be himself or a teammate. Kershaw came agonizingly close in 2010, placing fourth in the team sprint with Harvey. Kershaw also missed the podium in the men’s 50k by less than a second.
“After skiing for two hours, and to finish two seconds from a gold medal, and less than a second from a bronze in 2010 really was a heartbreak, but I did believe I’d have another chance,” Kershaw said.