February 11, 2016 (Stockholm, SWE) – Canada’s Alex Harvey double poled to a strong 7th place finish in the men’s 1.2km CL in downtown Stockholm, Sweden on Thursday as Russia’s Nikita Kriukov blasted to victory besting Norwegians Ola Vigen Hattestad in second and Petter Northug in third.

Joining Harvey, who qualified 20th, in the quarterfinal heats were the U.S.A’s Simi Hamilton in 21st and Andy Newell in 26th but the Americans did not advance while Harvey was on form finishing second in his quarterfinal. Canada’s Len Valjas qualified 45th, while Reese Hanneman was 66th and Erik Bjornsen was 69th and did not advance.

“It was really important to get this result today. I haven’t had much success in the sprints this year so it was nice to get back in the top-10, especially with the Ski Tour Canada coming up, which has three sprint races,” said Harvey.

Harvey got off to a slower start in his semifinal heat and made up ground moving into fourth. He jumped into third at the finish but missed out on punching his ticket to the final on the tight sprint course.

“It is always really cool anytime you can bring a sporting event to a downtown. The music and energy was really cool,” said Harvey, who now moves to 12th in the overall World Cup standings.

“The course was tight, and I had to focus on having good lines in every corner today. Downtown sprints are quite flat, and usually not a lot of terrain so we went with the strategy to use skate skis.

Qualifications here.
Results here.