November 28, 2015 (Ruka, Finland) – While the limelight was on Alex Harvey at today’s race, his long-standing teammate and friend Devon Kershaw, had a solid day finishing 24th in the points. After being quite ill last spring, Kershaw is on the comeback trail and had to be patient with his recovery and training which looks to be paying off as he’s had encouraging results at back-to-back weekends in Gallivare, Sweden and in Finland at the Ruka Triple. Fans will remember his awesome 2012 season where he finished 2nd overall and took home six medals including Canada’s first-ever sprint gold. We caught up with the Sudbury skier after today’s 10km FR where Kersh’s bud, Harvey, was on the podium.

Devon Kershaw (CAN) © Nordic Focus

Impressive skiing by Alex… and you had a very decent day in 24th.
DK: Really, really, really impressive by Alex. For an individual start skate race and before Christmas – it was scary good for him. It was his first podium before Christmas ever…so for the first distance race of the World Cup season, look out. For me, I was happy with how I skied. Like last weekend, to have two skate races (individual start) back-to-back, feeling good and able to move and ski technically well – I’m proud of that. Of course, I had the ride of the day (with Sundby), and he annihilated me in the last 1.9km (where he put 14 seconds on me there). So that was not good at all, but other than that really solid and I am quite pleased.

How were you feeling this morning ?
DK: I was feeling good this morning. The first 10-15min testing skis I must say I was a bit worried, since the legs didn’t feel super snappy, but after I warmed up longer and did my intensity I knew the body was there. Sometimes that doesn’t mean anything, but today it translated onto the race course.

What happened in yesterday’s sprint CL as you didn’t qualify?
DK: It was a culmination of things I guess (yesterday’s horrendous race in the sprint). I iced badly out of the start (about 10 seconds into the qualification) and I carried that ice with me (as it kept building up) around the whole course. By the time I got to the finish it was probably 2-3cm under my right foot. So – having an anchor the whole way did not help things. That said, to be 88th, and a whopping 17.98 seconds back, in only a 2.5min race, is inexcusable. I obviously didn’t execute too well and when you couple that with tricky conditions and not the best equipment it was the perfect storm of bad. Still, I was flabbergasted to have my career-worst sprint result yesterday. I mean, I felt good warming up and everything.

Talk about today’s course and your pacing… is it a course that suits you ?
DK: It is a course that doesn’t suit me too well – as the hills are quite steep and fairly long. I love this course in classic, but in skate it has a history of exposing my weakness (ie. offset). Still, I have been working really hard on that technique this year and while I wasn’t amazing over that terrain today, I think I was better than previous years on that steep terrain, so I will take it.

As for pacing, I knew Sundby started 30sec behind me, so I started a bit conservatively. Not too slow – but skiing smooth and big – not rushing the technique or worrying too much about the early splits. Sundby caught me around 3.5km, and from there I skied with him for 5km or so before he destroyed me on one of the last big climbs of the race. I was really messed up for those last 1.5km, and lost a lot of time, but to hold it together enough to finish in the points was a nice consolation.

You’re a strong classic skier – what’s your strategy for the final 15km C Pursuit tomorrow…?
DK: Haha, tomorrow is a really difficult race. It’s the hardest race of the whole year usually effort-wise. People are just going bananas from the gun. The strategy is warm up well, ski well technically and hope for the best. You got to go with the pace and if you are on a decent day good things can happen. If not, it’s going to be serious pain for the last 5km.

What’s the overall energy like at the Ruka Triple… ?
DK: The energy here at the Ruka triple is ok. The crowd is quite small though, but the athlete/teams energy is so high. Everyone is so excited to get the World Cup season going, and these races mean a lot for the bigger nations (like Russia, or Norway and the home nation of Finland). If you ski well here and you’re Norwegian that means you can continue on the World Cup. If not, it’s back home to the Scan-tour or the Norwegian Cup and some new skiers get a chance. So, the vibe can be pretty high-stakes compared to later in the season. But they do a great job of getting the race courses ready and I think people sometimes forget just how into xc skiing Finland is. The fans love it and the Finnish people have a deep, deep bond with this sport. On the training trails, even up here at 66 degrees North in November, there are many recreational skiers already getting after it.

Good luck on Sunday.
DK: Thanks