November 23, 2014 (Gallivare, Sweden) – Following today’s 15km CL race at the SportEvent Gällivare Lapland venue where he placed 5th we caught up with Canadian veteran Devon Kershaw for a brief chat. This was his first distance race of the season – he won the sprint at Frozen Thunder – and while he wasn’t overly pleased with his race today things may be turning around for Canada’s most successful men’s cross-country skier. He started to show his old form at the end of last season and finds himself healthy and in good shape. The Sudbury skier recently announced his engagement to Kristin Stoermer Steira of the Norwegian team, and says the team spirit is clicking with new World Cup coach Tor Arne Hetland of Norwegian fame as well – today’s race results here.

Great start for the team… how are you feeling overall ?
Devon Kershaw: I am feeling ok. I’ve been training a decent amount these last couple weeks so of course there have been some up and downs with regards to my energy this week – but prior to the start today the body and mind felt ready for the effort.

Are you happy with today’s result ?
DK: I am not super happy with the result part of the race if I’m being honest. Still, I felt like I skied well for 3/4 of the race… I blew up badly after 3km of skiing with Belov (who passed me at 7.5km for 30sec and I stayed with him for 3km) which made the last lap a real struggle both mentally and physically after an output like that to try and hang on. There were positives and negatives today.

You missed yesterday’s sprint… are you 100% healthy ?
DK: Yep – 100% healthy. Just still training a decent amount this week and this weekend is just “practice” so there were other goals and objectives for the week that TA [Tor Arne Hetland] and I were considering.

What’s the team spirit like with the new set up ?
DK: The team spirit is great right now. The coaches here are doing a stellar job and it’s been so nice to have everyone working together so well. It’s awesome to have Justin [Wadsworth] here with us to start the season, I’ve really appreciated that. Our new technician Fabio is great and the mood in the team – both athletes, techs and coaches – is really, really good. I am really happy that we decided to get back to racing tune-ups ahead of the World Cups next weekend – it’s been a good week to test some stuff out before the show starts next weekend.

Your Norwegian must be getting pretty good with Kristin and Tor Arne on board…?
DK: Haha, I am taking an online course. I am way too nervous/ self conscious to talk with Tor Arne in Norwegian – he’s too scary for that. With Kristin I try most days to say some stuff, but it’s an ugly situation right now. Baby steps. I guess I just need to be happy with that.

March 16, 2009 (Trondheim, Norway) – We caught up with Canada’s Devon Kershaw following his stellar 7th place finish in the men’s 50km Classic on the final day of competition at the Veissmann XC World Cup in Trondheim, Norway on Saturday. Kershaw has had his best season to date and he shared his thoughts with us on the season, Lahti, Alex Harvey’s bronze, Trondheim and more…

How did the 50km develop? You had a strong finish, but it looks like you ended up skiing a lot of it alone.
Devon Kershaw In a word: quickly. It was the first time in a normal World Cup competition that FIS used a “preem” system – like in the Tour De Ski mass start races, where bonus seconds can be won. On Saturday the preems were for bonus World Cup points (15 for 1st, 10 for 2nd, 5 for 3rd)). Usually men’s mass start racing is rather slow moving for a lot of the race, as people jockey for position and look at each other nervously until someone eventually makes a move. With so many World Cup points on the line – especially this late in the season – people were really charging from about 6km into the race, to collect as many bonus points as they could.

Two Russians launched very early (maybe 6-7km into the race, it was Legkov and Rochev) and they blew open a gap. Sodergren chased and soon he had opened up a gap as well on the field. I waited to see what would happen for a 1 or 2km, but realized nobody was interested in bringing it back together at that point, so I went to the front of the big “chase” group and started trying to bring Sodergren back (the Russians still had a gap on him). The Russians passed through the 1st preem in the lead and with their gap dwindling (at about 10km), and when we all got back together, it wasn’t long before Alex (Harvey) went to the front and started to really drive the pace.

It was Alex who really shattered the race, and I was surprised that even after two or three laps it was Alex out front alone. After 20-25km there were about 15 of us in the “chase pack” with Alex at times up to 20 seconds off the front. He simply blew the race apart big time, splintering the field into small groups as people tried keep their bodies from totally self destructing.

After Alex had been leading for about one lap, Angerer and Jahojarvi started to get a bit jumpy and decided to close on him, and it was at that point when I just couldn’t match their initial acceleration. To be honest, I didn’t feel that good for the first 20-25km of the race – and when they lifted the pace I thought I’d be in trouble for the remainder as I fell off the “chase group.”

After that, I ended up skiing about 20-25km completely alone – in 9th place – but feeling better and better as the kilometers ticked by. It was a very weird feeling for a World Cup actually, to be top 10 with nobody in sight. On my last lap I was still feeling strong, and was able to keep my speed high (as high as I could skiing solo), and as a reward I was able to pick off the German, Filbrich and the Swede, Ricardsson with about 1km to go to finish 7th. In the end it ended up being a very solid effort, and to be top 10 in such a grueling event – I was satisfied for sure.

With it being so late in the season for me, I was happy to see that I could remain competitive, and it goes without saying that our entire team was over the moon with Alex’s performance!

I was on the bus with you guys in Lahti, Finland and overheard you being confused as to why it went so badly there. Did Trondheim feel different? Was it the skis?
DK: Yeah, Lahti was a weird one. I don’t know what happened to our team there. In the sprint on Saturday I felt great warming up, and even “felt” good during the race, but I was just awful. Our whole men’s team sprinted poorly, as none of us were able to advance to the quarter finals.

On the Sunday’s 15km, Ivan and I, were kind of in there for a little bit, but we both fell off the pace horribly in the last 3-4km, which was so confusing. Confusing because I have been so much better with my pacing this year, and Ivan is a complete animal on steep/punchy skate courses (like Lahti). So along with George and Alex, and Dave having “off” days, we were left with a bad taste in our mouths. Prior to the race, our whole team actually thought that Ivan was a serious contender for the podium – so to see him in 37th, George an I in the 40s, and Alex in the 50s was a serious shock.

I don’t think it was skis. I didn’t see many people out there, but Alex and George had some traffic around them and they didn’t say anything about our skis not being competitive. There were a few reasons for the poor weekend, but I am still confused with both my sprint and distance races being so bad. Perhaps we were all bit “under-trained” after hanging out in Liberec for over two weeks. It’s always hard to do good quality training to keep your shape up while you are at a championship.

As well, we must have all been a bit tired from the long championships as well. I raced four times, and although that in itself is tough – it’s not “crazy,” and I know for myself it was a really tough championship both mentally and physically. You know the nature of x-c skiing – you need to get a handle on so many variables to come out on top – and in Liberec, as a team we missed some of those variables on various days – making the racing extra tough (bad, bad skis some days, Ivan crashing twice in the 50km, the four of us icing badly in the classic portion of the pursuit etc. These aren’t excuses – it was just the reality)

After a frustrating Nordic Worlds, it seems like you’ve been showing signs of fitness over the last few weeks, but it just didn’t come together until now. Any ideas why?
DK: Like Lahti, I don’t really have any real explanation for that either. Six days before Nordic World Championships I was out with a bad stomach flu – so I couldn’t race in Valdidentro, Italy (the last World Cup before the World Champs in Liberec), but during the Worlds I knew I was in good shape. But because of reasons mentioned, the good form wasn’t showing on the results page. I started to get a bit down on myself and the championships as a whole near the end, but then I had one of my best races of the year in the first leg of the relay – and our team finished a best ever 5th, which was awesome. I knew I had dialed in my prep, but I needed a race like that 10km to show myself that we actually didn’t make any mistakes with the training leading into it and if things could have gone differently in the other races, who knows?

After the Worlds, Lahti was a disaster and the worst weekend of the year for me, but I quickly put that behind me and pushed on. It’s been an extremely long year as well, with over five months of European racing – which has been harder than normal too because my girlfriend, Chandra (Crawford), has been out all season long with injury problems and she’s usually on the road with me. Talk about going from the best set-up ever to the worst, quickly – but I knew I still had one or two good performances left in the tank.

In the classic sprint in Trondheim, I was happy to qualify, and I felt really good in my quarter final heat – but there were some issues there out of my control and I had to settle with a dismal 24th place finish, but I knew the shape was indeed still “there.”

I was very happy to see that I could still contend in the 50km, because with it being so late in the year coupled with it being my first 50km in about 4 or 5 years I didn’t know what to expect coming in. I’ve been working hard on consistency these last few years, and it’s very important for me to be able to ski competitively throughout the entire season – which I think I’ve been able to do fairly well this year. The race wasn’t my season’s best by any stretch – but it was nice to have a responsive body after so much racing/traveling.

I honestly think that my form was always there. Worlds was tricky for a number of reasons, but I knew that I was in good shape. Trondheim was very good yet I still can’t put my finger on our disastrous Lahti weekend mind you…

Alex obviously had a tremendous result. You guys must be pretty excited about the relay in Whistler. What are your thoughts about that race after this weekend’s results?
DK: Alex was and truly is, simply unreal. I’ve always said he is by far the single most talented athlete I have ever trained/traveled/raced with, but it’s one thing to have the hype and “potential/talent” and quite another thing to go out and get it done – like he did on Saturday.

Like nobody else I’ve ever met, he just has an incredible ability to step up and change like a chameleon to his new environment so quickly, adjusting almost instantaneously to the new challenges that meet him.

Think of his season – he was winning some, but not all the Nor/Ams earlier in the year and when he won, he wasn’t crushing anyone, it was always fairly tight. Then after Christmas in Whistler for the World Cups, he stepped up huge, distancing himself substantially from his other Nor/Am competitors in the pursuit and hitting the podium in the team sprint. He had made a huge step.

At the U23’s he was able to throw down two top 5’s still he wasn’t satisfied in the least with that, because he wanted to win. But it was still impressive for a 1st year senior.

Instead of getting tired or slowing down, he’s just been better and better after that. In the points at the Valdidentro World Cup, then at Worlds he made a another big jump to finish 22nd in the pursuit, not to mention being rock solid as he anchored our relay team.

Now, he’s simply on fire! Sure, every spring a lot of athletes are getting tired, losing their form, and struggling, but it’s not as though Alex hasn’t raced. He’s raced close to 30 times already and good for Alex to be able to exploit peoples weaknesses right now. He’s stepped up yet again, and is now showing the world that he’s one of the biggest talents anywhere to hit our sport.

Seeing him ski away in the 50km, I thought he was going to win it. He’s got guts, he’s smart, and he’s talented as hell. When it all comes together perfectly on a given day, we all see the magic. Look out this weekend, because his form is excellent and he’s a better skate skier. As for this weekend, he expects very big things yet again, but we’ll just have to wait and see if he’s able to recover fully from that tough 50km (which I am sure he will be able to do).

As for next year’s Olympics, of course it’s exciting. Alex is there. Ivan is there. I am getting there, and George is coming off his best-ever season. The relay is important to us in Vancouver, and if we are all able to keep improving, stay healthy and get a bit lucky, I believe we can seriously contend.

That said, there’s a lot of work to do from now until then. We’ll all have to rest well this spring, and have superb training seasons coming into next year’s Olympics, because everyone in the world wants to win. Sure, it’s in Canada, but just because our country is putting a lot of emphasis on the Games, we cannot forget that the rest of the nations worldwide are also focused on winning.

What do the next few weeks look like for you? Do you have any vacation plans after the final races?
DK: Well, first of all I need to survive these last four races in my season here in Sweden. I am not sure how fast I will be able to recover from Saturday’s 50km, but we’ll just have to see. I believe I can still have one or two decent races to close out the season officially, but I’ve raced a ton this year, and living out of a suitcase is wearing on me big time.

When I get back to Canada next Monday (wow?!), I will continue to cross country ski for the next week until April hits, then I will wax and put away the skinny sticks. I enjoy back country skiing (randonee, ski mountaineering type stuff), and I have one or two trips planned in the Rockies in April with some friends. As far as vacations go, Chandra and I aren’t totally sure yet what we’re going to be up to. One of my best friends is getting married in Mexico (Sayulita), so we’ll hit that up for sure.

Chandra is getting a bit stir crazy in Canmore with all here injury problems she’s battled through this season and wants to travel A LOT and go on a bunch of vacations, but we’ll have to just see. The main thing is that I take April to completely recharge my batteries both physically and mentally to be ready the beginning of May to really do a great job as we lead into the Olympics.

Thanks a bunch – congrats and good luck down the road.
DK: Thanks